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Midsummer Motoring 
in Europe 



By 
DeCourcy IV, Thorn 



With 24 Illustrations 



^ 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Z\)z IknicfterbocRec iPress 

1916 



Copyright, 1916 

BY 

DECOURCY W. THOM 









OCT !3 19(6 

Ube 1f?nfcftecbocl!cr press, IRcw JBorft 



'GI.A438859 



Mr. and Mrs. D. H. G. 

AND 

Mrs. DeC. W. T. 
the true companions of my cruise, i dedicate 

ITS "log." 

BLAKEFORD " 

October 8, 1915. 



PREFACE 




HE notes in my commonplace book, 
kept during a motor tour of ten 
weeks in Europe, supplemented by 
reading and thought, are the basis 
of this volume, which was written hurriedly at 
White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., in the summer of 
19 14, at such times as the occupations of the rest 
of my family left me to myself. I may say, 
therefore, that were it not for their indulgence 
in such captivating pleasures as bridge, dancing, 
tennis, and golf this record of my most delightful 
and instructive trip in West-Central Europe would 
not have been attempted. Walking for exercise, 
and this "log" of our travels in the summer of 
1910 — through Belgium, Northern France, that 
is ancient Picardy and present Normandy and 
Brittany, Touraine, Central France, ancient Bur- 
gundy, Lorraine, Alsace, middle Baden, Wurtem- 
berg, and Southern Germany to Ober-Ammergau 
with its Passion Play, thence via extreme Northern 
Switzerland to Paris, to London, and back to my 



vi PREFACE 

"ain countree" — absorbed my spare hours. To 
make this book of practical help to motorists and 
other travellers I have added a map of our route 
and in tabular form at the end of the volume 
have given each day's schedule as to hours of 
starting and stopping, miles run, inns patronized, 
and the character of their service. To save my 
narrative from being a mere record I have written 
freely of my own impressions and conclusions. 
To clear my own views, and to make it easy for 
any who may follow my line of travel or thought to 
understand the regions explored and the peoples 
among whom I sojourned — from whom I have 
gained much pleasure and inspiration, I have 
incorporated here and there, much condensed 
information, and have added some verses con- 
ceived as I travelled but written as my narrative 
took form. 

Among the many books which I have found of 
material assistance to me in the preparation of 
this volume, I recall Bonnechose's Histoire de 
France, Mark Twain's Joan of Arc, Normandy in 
Colour, by Gordon Howe; Baedeker's London, 
Paris, Belgium, Northern France, and Southern 
Germany; Anatole Le Braz's TJie Night oj Fires, 



PREFACE vii 

and The Land of Pardons; Belgium of the Belgia^is, 
by D. C. Boulger; Old Tourame, by Theodore 
Andrea Cook, B.A. ; Frapries' Bavarian Inns; 
Jungman's Normandy; Monmarche's The Chateaux 
of the Loire; Baring-Gould's The Land of Teck; 
MacDonnell's Touraine and its Story; Freeman's 
English Constitutio7i; The Statesman' s Year Book; 
Johnston's The Corsican; Duruy's General History; 
Palgrave's History of England and Normandy; 
Bash's Queens of France; Strickland's Queens of 
England; MacCracken's History of Switzerland, etc. 
One of the most salient points forced upon me 
by my study and thought after this ten weeks' 
motor trip has been that of the preponderating 
influence of woman in producing so many of the 
greatest historical happenings in the countries of 
my journeyings. 

But my chief delight in telling this story has 
arisen from the well of happy memory. Never 
was there a pleasanter trip or kinder companion- 
ship. But who could refuse to be happy on a 
honeymoon trip spent in easy travel through 
beautiful France, romantic Southern Germany, 
and sturdy Switzerland, during the most perfect 
of weather? I hope that my readers may find in 



viii PREFACE 

their perusal of this book full incentive to follow 
the pleasant journeyings that charmed me then 
and now. 

Dec. W. T. 

" Blakeford," Queenstown p. O., 
Maryland, October 7, igiS. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — From Maryland to Antwerp . . 3 
II. — Belgium ...... 21 

III. — Normandy ...... 75 

IV. — Brittany . . . . . .109 

V. — Through France, Baden-Baden, Wur- 

TEMBERG, AND BaVARIA TO ObER- 

Ammergau and ITS "Passion Play," 

AND THEN VIA BaVARIA, WuRTEMBERG, 

Switzerland, Baden-Baden, and 
France TO Paris . . . .187 

VI. — Paris, London, and across the Atlan- 
tic, Home ..... 248 



IX 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Docks at Antwerp . . Frontispiece 

A Flemish Milk Woman .... 20 

Ohain Road. Gordon and Hanoverian 

Monuments. Farm of La Haie Sainte 32 

The Lake of Embarcation in the Grotto 

OF Han ....... 46 

The Belfry of Bruges .... 56 

The South Front of Amiens Cathedral . 78 

The Weeping Angel of the Cathedral of 

Amiens ....... 80 

The Protestant Church of St. Eloi at 

Rouen ....... 86 



The Inn of William the Conqueror at 
Dives-sur-Mer. Court of Louis XIV 

The Market Place of Morlaix 

Queen Anne's House at Morlaix 

Fountain of Saint Barbara 

Aeroferry at Nantes 



90 
116 
120 
126 
146 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Chateau of Chenonceaux . . .164 

The Chapel of the Chateau of Amboise . 168 

The Chateau de Blois . . . .176 

The Birth House of Joan of Arc . .196 

Theatre and Cure Plaza at Baden-Baden 206 

The Market Place at Memmingen . .216 

Mount Kofel and Cross at Oberammergau 218 

The Devil Gargoyle and Raven Gargoyle 

OF Notre Dame, Paris . . . .274 

Victor Hugo by Rodin, in the Gardens of 

THE Royal Palace, Paris . . . 276 

The Dogs' Cemetery, Hyde Park . . 280 

The New Naval Headquarters Opposite 

Trafalgar Square . . . .286 



Midsummer Motoring in Europe 



MOTORING 

Who has not dreamed these dreams: That he was flying swift 

through space; 
Or was borne free on waters running smooth and quick; 
Or floated in the sunshine on some placid, rocking ocean wave ; 
Or fell, downward, downward, through abysmal depths, but never 

landed. 
Waking or half awake thoughts such as these may come 
To him who long and swiftly motors o'er good roads through hilly 

lands. 
Here comes a smooth wild dash down some long sweet decline, 
Or placid gliding o'er some level, glossy stretch of road, 
Or dropping, dropping, as you ever speedier rush down some 

stupendous slope 
While all the landscape ever lightly changes. Onward, on you 

fly, 

Free as the wind, yet guiding all your flight as true as though you 

were a bird ; 
And musing on the various things so swiftly being passed, 
While fancy thrills and flings her tricksy magic o'er the melting 

views. 



idsummer Motoring in Europe 




CHAPTER I 
From Maryland to Ant^werp 

HAPPY thought," I said to myself. 
"A very happy thought," said my 
brother-in-law and his wife upon 
hearing of it. "Yes, let us take 
the Packard and Tom the chauffeur, halve all 
their expenses, and tour the northern French 
coast and Touraine." And so we did, and more, 
as is here set forth, and we realized as delightful, 
safe, and mechanically perfect a four-thousand- 
miles-motoring spin as was ever vouchsafed to 
two young married couples. 

"They" had been married some years, "we" 
not a month. "We" left "Westmoreland," 
Green Spring Valley, Baltimore County, Mary- 
land, on Friday, July 7, 1910, and with "them" 
boarded the four-o'clock train from the Union 

3 



4 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Station, Baltimore, for New York City. Next 
morning we made a comfortable start on the 
steamer Vaderland of the Red Star Line. 

It is a good plan to begin any travelling thor- 
oughly rested, steady, fit in supplies, and with all 
the functions of the body working as well as your 
sensible family physician can manage for you. 
Then your outing is sure to be as pleasant and 
beneficial as possible, provided you make no 
unusual mistakes throughout it. Certainly our 
railroad run in the cool of the afternoon to New 
York City, our light dinner and comfortable 
night at the "Seville" Hotel, the slight breakfast 
there next morning, and the buying of a steamer- 
chair cushion or two and some supplies at a drug- 
gist's on our way to the steamer, which was to 
sail at 10:30 A.M., Saturday, July 8th, were all 
well considered. We found our steamer trunks 
and carryalls containing sea-rugs in our state- 
rooms; we added to the pile our hand-bags and 
a little trunk to fit exactly at the back of the auto- 
mobile when we should start it at Antwerp, and 
then "saw" the deck steward about placing our 
deck chairs precisely where the ticket agent had 
promised they should be set. Part of the fee 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 5 

set aside for the deck steward accomplished 
that. 

Freed from the cares of baggage we took more 
comfortable inspection of our fellow voyagers and 
of the friends who had come to see them off; we 
chatted with a dear friend and with a kind relative 
come to say "God-speed," and when they left 
fell to writing good-bye postals and letters of 
acknowledgment and thanks for presents of fruit, 
flowers, or of reading matter that our dear ones 
had lovingly sent us. A stimulating thing that, 
the leaving dock of an Atlantic liner. Perhaps 
you have been worn down physically or dulled in 
heart or mind and so are seeking a thorough 
change. Well, that change has begun. It jostles 
you out of your ruts. It substitutes new habits, 
people, and thoughts for your customary ones. 
And so a rest is forced upon you. Your steamer 
chair, the salt air, the little new world of your 
ship dominating space bounded,. as it seems, by a 
circular dome of blue sky fitted upon a plane of 
dancing, fresh, and sparkling green-blue water, 
are all conducive to rest. But before such delight- 
ful treatment at the hands of the God of the Wave, 
the Vaderland, aided by several tugs, must find her 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



way from the New York dock, past and through the 
shipping on either side, past ' ' Castle Stevens," past 
Bartholdi's "Liberty Enlightening the World," 
past Fort Washington, where the writer's father 
recuperated from yellow fever contracted while 
an officer in the nth United States Infantry in 
the Mexican War; past the Jersey Coast to the 
south and Long Island to the north. Then land 
sinks from view and you and yours fall under the 
kind influence of the open sea and the fresh ocean 
air. 

Only an occasional steamer, or sailing ship is 
to be seen; but the white old gulls and the grey 
young ones will follow in your wake for several 
days yet, in search of food flung from the ship. 
How glancing white and grey they are ! How easily 
they fly! They seem to stand for rapid motion 
outside your ship in this little new, clean, salty 
world, for as you glance from your steamer chair, 
snugly placed behind the windbreak of a projec- 
tion of the upper tier of staterooms, there is 
nothing else to see but blue and grey of distant 
sky or cloud. 

But I am running along a trifle fast. At eleven 
o'clock the Vaderland had sailed. By twelve " we " 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 7 

and "they" had disposed our things in our pro- 
menade deck staterooms with bathroom between, 
and I had seen to it, that the dining-table engaged 
by me for our special party of four and for six 
friends who were crossing at the same time, was 
at our disposal. So it was. Then arose the ques- 
tion of eating on board an ocean liner. Eat and 
exercise wisely and keep much in the pure sea-air 
and you will be well and happy — that is, free from 
seasickness — provided you were careful to start 
your voyage neither bilious nor with a digestion 
disturbed twenty-four hours previous by some 
antibilious medicine. 

Everyone knows what antibilious medicine is 
kindest to him. Use it duly and freely as I have 
said. You know your own constitution. Be- 
lieve me, the English joke about certain pills is 
not to be taken in a Procrustean way nor the pills 
too earnestly. Do you recall it? The story is 
that their advertising agent had smuggled two 
lines about them into the version of a hymn 
which he had distributed to a Sunday School 
practicing Christmas carols. Those children 
and their teachers, wiser than they knew, sang 
gaily, 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



" Hark the herald angels sing 
Beecham's pills are just the thing — 
Peace on earth and mercy mild, 
Two for a man and one for a child." 

But steady nerves, self-control, enlightened, com- 
mon-sense treatment of one's habits of eating, 
drinking, etc., are the sovereign basis of good 
health on sea or land. 

But our first meal on Vaderland awaits us. 
Now some lines have meals entirely d, la carte, 
some only heavy and long table d'hote, but on the 
Vaderla7id and her sister ships, Kroonland, Finland, 
and Zeeland, there persists the good old American 
plan. Thus our party would learn from the stew- 
ard at one meal what would be the best dishes for 
the ensuing one, and order them as for a dinner- 
party, with the privilege, of course, of ordering 
any other thing desired from the bill of fare. 
However, so satisfactory was this plan that we 
were exceedingly well cared for, though the possible 
choice was never a very remarkably extended one. 

On such well-built, well-managed, and well- 
proportioned ships as those of the Red Star Line 
I have mentioned, which take some ten days to 
pass between New York and Antwerp, there is a 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 9 

minimum of oscillation, engine smell, and dining- 
room odour, so that seasickness is practically nil. 
So "we" found it. So did "they," and so did all 
our party. The weather throughout was calm 
enough, and except off the Fishing Banks of 
Newfoundland, where the colder Arctic waters and 
the Gulf Stream produced between them foggy 
weather, we experienced nothing to which even 
the most captious could object. 

Conversation, walking, shuffle-board, Welsh- 
rarebit parties, cards, dances, reading, inspecting 
the ship, and resting in our chairs made the time 
pass altogether delightfully. And to consider 
our fellow voyagers and speculate as to who and 
what they were was now and then a diversion. 
There was a foreign minister dancing over the 
deck to the music of the Morning Concert. And 
was it true that the little old man yonder convoy- 
ing a number of middle-aged women was a Mor- 
mon Elder with his family? And so we sailed 
along, contented with our little floating world, 
which was well indeed, for, excepting the Minne- 
waska sighted on our first day out, and the Baltic 
on the tenth, and a tramp steamer on the eleventh, 
we passengers had seen no sign of outside life 



lo MOTORING IN EUROPE 

since leaving the American coast. Speaking of 
calm seas and the Minnewaska, a fin-keeled, mar- 
vellously steady steamer on which a friend of 
mine once crossed as a guest of the president of 
its line, reminds me of his reply to that presi- 
dent's daughter who was asking him his im- 
pression of that wonderfully steady vessel. He 
said : ' ' There is only one thing lacking. A billiard 
table." 

So much for happenings outside Vaderland. 
I have mentioned all of them except our seeing a 
few porpoises at play, a shark, and a purple-sailed 
nautilus. Moved by the last to recollection of 
Holmes's exquisite verses to the Nautilus and 
suffering by the absence of my bride at the bridge 
table, I composed these verses to my nautilus 
upon seeing it founder. 

NAUTILUS 

{Written upon seeing a wrecked and purple-sailed 
nautilus sink into the Gulf Stream's blue waters.) 

There, in the Gulf Stream's limpid blue, 
Shipwrecked, flung all abeam. 
Thy purple sail astream, 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP ii 

Thou liest prone; dainty ship of shimmering pearl! 
Alas! thy struggle from the under water's dark and 

cool and safe retreat 
Into the mellow sunshine has brought thee only sad 

defeat ; 
And thou hast fared as hearts of humans often fare 

in life's wild whirl. 

But wait! The sky and stream are blue ; 

And now, as in a dream 

Where working fairies gleam, 

Some tumbling, foam-touched, blue-shot wavelet 

gently swirls 
Into thy hold and freights thee, till, with sail refurled, 

thou lapse to calming deeps. 
To pause until again on smooth, warm seas the 

blessed sunshine sleeps. 
O Ship! O Hearts of humans, so may come to each 

his life's best "Pearls." 

And so the easy life on the staunch ship Voder- 
land — 12,018 tons, unsurpassed for steadiness, said 
passengers who in more than thirty round trips 
from America to Europe had sailed on many ships 
— passed pleasantly. Nothing exciting developed. 
Indeed, one of our chief events occurred when on 
our fourth night a Mother Carey's chicken — the 
sea-swallow — lit upon our vessel. It was released 
that day, but it lingered around and boarded the 



12 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

ship again at night. This time about daybreak, 
when enticing ship lights were out, the Httle 
fellow was released at the stern of the vessel, far 
from their hypnotic attraction, and we received 
no further visit from him. What a lively life 
these Mother Carey's chickens lead! The storm 
stimulates them into wild and dashing flights, and 
upon its subsidence they float upon the smooth 
and dancing wave. All of us have dreamed the 
Peter Pan dream of floating through space, swim- 
ming on the air billow, gazing dowTi on a weltering 
surface. Many have sought the humanly attain- 
able portion of that dream by floating on ocean 
waves; some, in boyhood, have sought the wind- 
swayed tree-tops; some have been up in balloons 
and aeroplanes ; but our little friend the sea-swallow 
enjoys all those forms of motion. He must have 
many thrills in his lonely but very lively life. 

We were approaching land Saturday, July i6th; 
seven days out, we were off the southern Irish 
coast, and on Sunday, July 17th, which was 
marked for us by the three events of holding in 
the main saloon a Protestant Episcopal service 
with no collection, the receipt of a Marconigram 
from the Lusitania to one of our general group, 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 13 

and the sight of the Scilly Islands lighthouse on 
Bishop's Rock, we began to feel the call of the 
life on land. Longships Lighthouse off Land's 
End, Cornwall, was passed, then Devonshire, the 
South Downs of Dorsetshire, and the Isle of Wight ; 
we drew nearer to the coast and saw through the 
shades of night the lights successively of Ventnor, 
Isle of Wight, Brighton, New Haven, and the 
South Downs of Sussex. And so to bed. 

Early the next forenoon we espied the famous 
chalk cliffs of Dover, now protected by heavy- 
earthwork embattlements administered from 
Walmer Castle, one of the ancient Cinque Port 
headquarters. Doubtless the earthwork embat- 
tlements could now delay and worry an attacking 
force, but Walmer Castle looks like an easy mark 
for modern artillery. However, would not a 
modern foe land where he chose if he dodged or 
overcame the English Channel Fleet? — or the 
aeroplane squadron? The great Julius Caesar 
twice taught the trick about this very Dover itself, 
and William the Conqueror repeated the lesson 
in 1066. But then there was no Channel Fleet. 
When there was. Napoleon vainly tried for eigh- 
teen months to cross from Boulogne, Had he 



14 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

evaded the English Channel Fleet what would 
have followed his doubtless successful landing! 
Surely modern history would have shown an alto- 
gether different setting. Democracy would have 
been greatly checked in its advance and conquest, 
special privilege and its proponents would have 
been upheld throughout Europe, and why not 
throughout the world, by the mailed hand of a 
successful Napoleon, and modernism retarded 
for generations. 

But let us return to our "muttons." Our gen- 
eral group broke up at Dover. Several went 
ashore by the tender as fogginess prevented our 
docking behind the fine moles the English Govern- 
ment has there erected. Then, under weigh 
again, and a slow steaming out for fear of trouble 
through the fog which was thickening. We were 
watching the few gulls discernible when the fog 
grew denser and we ran gently aground. After 
thirty minutes we pulled off. Then groped along 
an hour and grounded once more. Then we 
desisted and anchored and, ringing the warning 
three bells, waited till the clouds rolled by. 
Very soon a ship passed just in front of us. We 
got started after some hours of that sort of amuse- 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 15 

merit, and early next morning were off Flushing, 
whose heavily mounted fortifications dominate 
the shallow, lazy Scheldt. 

Oliver Goldsmith sings of it, you recollect, as 
the "lazy Scheldt" and professes to have tramped 
along it and so into France and Italy, supporting 
himself by playing his flute. But was he not 
really, in the language of the day, indulging in a 
"pipe dream" of another sort? At any rate he 
was accurate as to its laziness. And as it is forty- 
six miles from its mouth to our destination, Ant- 
werp, and is surprisingly shallow, we crept along 
very slowly indeed, and not till early next morning 
were we well up towards the city. The green 
grass along the rivers, the high Dutch embank- 
ments stretching for thirty miles, with sixteen 
miles of clearly discerned Belgian territory beyond, 
the tops of trees and of wonderfully clean, red and 
white houses, the sight of cattle and sheep at 
pasture in the distance, and the many flat-bot- 
tomed, blunt-stem river craft, that we encountered 
boggling along under their heavy brown sails, 
entertained us greatly. Memory did its part also 
in making our slow progress pleasant. The stir- 
ring events terminated by the Treaty of Paris in 



1 6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

1 8 15 flashed out and accounted for the neutraliza- 
tion of Belgium and of Holland and the bottling 
up of lower Germany by the making of the Scheldt 
partly Belgian and partly Hollandish, just as the 
German Rliine at its mouth issues through the 
breadth of Holland. Statecraft checks and bal- 
ances, as it may and must, of course; but I ask 
any and all lay persons if their sympathies are not 
with the teeming millions of any nation whose 
exchange of their surplus for that of other nations 
trading with them would be greatly facilitated and 
cheapened if only they controlled such river routes 
leading to appropriate seaports as we have indi- 
cated. Do the Hinterland folk of Russia need 
such an ice-free portion of the Pacific? Did not 
England need South Africa for her world trading 
at the time of the Boer War, just as a few centuries 
before Holland had found it necessary, and as 
Portugal likewise had earlier needed it and used it? 
The greatest good of the greatest number can 
always present a splendid case in the debate with 
vested privilege of any kind whatsoever. Con- 
ventions necessary to constructive progress have 
eternally been wearing away obstacles in the way 
of the maturing interests of the living Present. 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 17 

Thoughts ran rapidly through some of the great 
defences and courageous self-sacrifices and splen- 
did achievements on sea and land of the great 
little Kingdom of Holland which today is the 
second largest colonial power in the world. 

But we think through the medium of ourselves, 
and very soon I fell to reviewing with genuine 
gratitude to God the successful voyage I had had 
vouchsafed me for my bride. Not one moment 
had she felt ill in any way, whereas on all former 
voyages she had been a prisoner in her berth from 
beginning to end, suffering from headache and 
seasickness. Our stateroom window opening on 
the promenade deck had remained open throughout 
the voyage so that only invigorating pure sea- 
air without a suggestion of hot oil or cooking had 
entered it. That and the absence of vibration 
or plunging by the ship had kept the nerve centres 
undisturbed. Travelling at about fifteen miles 
an hour allows a fairly short boat to move over 
the top of waves, whereas a much longer and say 
twice as swift a vessel would cut through them 
and be much jostled in the process, and so trouble 
her delicate passengers grievously. 

But think of passing slowly through the de- 



i8 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



lights and glories of a summer passage of the Atlan- 
tic. Oh! the splendours of light and water and 
sky by day and by night that caress you then! 
Everywhere around you extends the grandeur of 
God's mighty deep. Those who go down to the 
sea in ships can lift their hearts in worship of 
the Lord, Creator of all these splendours and the 
human atom allowed by Him to contemplate 
them. And oh! the unspeakable glories at sea, 
of the starry Heavens! I can only whisper the 
joy and delight such visions were and are to me. 
I will say no more for fear of growing bathetic, as 
was the voyager who said to a very small boy then 
making his first voyage, who had climbed upon 
the bulwark and was gazing across the ocean plane 
to the far horizon. "My boy, did you ever be- 
fore see such a glorious stretch of ocean — as far 
as you can see, only ocean?" "Yes," answered 
the boy. "Hardly," said the man. "Where 
do you think you saw it?" "On the other side 
of the ship," replied the youngster. 

But my thoughts have gone adrifting. We were 
moving very tranquilly up the Scheldt and were 
close to the Belgian frontier across it, when the 
Lady whose slave I am, determined, with the 



FROM MARYLAND TO ANTWERP 19 

Lady to whom my brother-in-law is slave, that it 
was time to pack for flitting. That, with an orgy 
of tipping, was to be at the end of our voyage, 
for we had been making our adieus to friends on 
and off all morning, as we knew from experience 
the futility of attempting to do so on the dock. 
Two carryalls were soon filled with such steamer 
rugs and pillows and heavy coats as were not 
needed for the automobile trip, and consigned to 
the purser for storage at the Red Star Line office 
with two others. One each of those indispensable 
carryalls belonged to my wife and me, whom in 
this veracious summary I shall for convenience 
designate in quotation marks as "we," just as I 
shall designate my brother-in-law and his wife as 
"they," while the group of us in the automobile 
will be referred to simply as we. 

To the carryalls we added our hand-bags and 
were prepared to say good-bye to the kindly ship's 
servants who had made our crossing so delightful. 
With interest we watched the process by which the 
Vaderland was warped into Antwerp's splendid 
stone docks despite lowering tide and muddy shal- 
low water in the dredged-out basin. Then we 
went down the companionway in the wake of the 



20 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

stewards with our hand-baggage. Our trunks fol- 
lowed and were disposed under their proper letter 
for convenience of customs inspection. Thus, after 
eleven happy days, ended the first stage of our 
outing. 



CHAPTER II 
Belgium 

Belgium, so wealthy in the costliest wealth of all — 

In people who will wisely war or work and soundly save 

As for two thousand years and more thy stark forefathers have 

Through fights 'gainst wind-swept sands that closed thy ports, 

and war's black pall 
That hung thy sturdy towns and countryside with bloody black; — 
I sing thy modernness deep-founded on thy people's will, 
Which, choosing of the world's new measures, all it liketh, still 
Unto its olden, proven ways and moorings barkens back. 
What counts a kingly mould of government to thee? O happiest 
That which best serves a people's will; and that most fit which 

proves 
It leads them as it should. And so, as bow-string follows straight 
The bended bow and bow the angling bow-string featly drawn 

lest 
Each should break each, Freedom is thine, O Land of Peace, of 

gentle loves, 
Of noble present, of strong past, and glorious future state. 



E passed the Custom House officials 
upon giving assurances that we 
had nothing dutiable, and piling 
all our belongings on the omnibus 
of the H6tel Weber, directed it to stop at Edwards 
& Co., Bassin de Jonction, Antwerp agents for 

21 




22 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

the American Express Company, so that we could 
see about getting the automobile out of the ship 
and ready for the road. But the 'bus stopped at 
the Company's office proper and not at Edwards 
& Co. We proceeded to the hotel, installed the 
ladies and all our baggage — more properly luggage, 
as in Europe one has to haul it about so much — • 
in some very satisfactory rooms, and then, taking 
one of the numerous open one-horse coupes, drove 
to Edwards & Co. to hasten the delivery of the 
machine into the hands of Tom the chauffeur, who 
was waiting at the dock to begin uncrating it and 
tuning it up for travelling just as soon as possible. 
Now speed in all that routine was part of our 
carefully planned program.me begun in the United 
States. First, my brother-in-law had joined the 
National Automobile Association through which 
international automobile easements were open to 
us. Through this organization we had obtained 
the appropriate membership card termed a "Trip- 
tych," because it would identify us in France, 
Germany, and Switzerland, and to frontier Custom 
House folk, as it contained a photograph of our 
very competent chauffeur, "Tom." 

The American Express Company had for the 



BELGIUM 23 



sum of $100 crated the machine in Baltimore, and 
sending it to New York by boat, had transhipped 
it to the Vaderland and promised that promptly 
upon reaching Antwerp the crate should be 
"hustled" on to the dock, the machine uncrated, 
and delivered to us instanter. 

However, our interviews with Edwards & Co. 
disillusioned us as to that speedy disgorgement. 
"Next morning we should have it." We joined 
Tom at the dock, and, returning to the hotel, 
enjoyed a good though very prolonged, many- 
course luncheon, and then proceeded to view the 
town. 

First we went to the Cathedral on whose south 
side is the elegant, parked and tree-lined little 
Place Verte, once its churchyard and now con- 
taining W. Greefs's huge bronze figure, thirteen 
feet high, of Peter Paul Rubens, the great colourist, 
painter, diplomat, courtier, and statesman. We 
entered the Cathedral. It is the largest and most 
beautiful Gothic church we saw in Belgium. It is 
nearly six hundred years old, but adequately re- 
stored. It is cruciform, with three aisles; and is 
adorned with fine wood carvings, stained-glass 
windows, and many paintings. The altar, The 



24 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Descent from the Cross, The Elevation oj the Cross, 
and The Assumption were painted by Rubens. 
The Descent from the Cross is said to have been 
Rubens's greatest painting, but now has been 
marred by retouching, though the retoucher was 
Van Dyck. The great tower of the Cathedral is 
402 feet high, of very elaborate open work. The 
other tower, less than a third as high, is wonderfully 
delicate, but is incomplete. 

At the Museum of Antwerp we viewed its 650 
pictures, many of which had been removed from 
monasteries now suppressed. Few of them are 
considered very good, though, of course, there 
are specimens of the work of many of the great 
painters of the Netherlands; for example, a 
great Schneider, some fine Huysmans, and two 
pictures each from Rembrandt, Wouverman, and 
Rubens. 

And so to the Hotel Weber where we dined, I 
at an atrociously long but seemingly good table 
d'hote, and "they" and my better half in their 
rooms. After dinner "we" walked on the Boule- 
vard named after DeKeyser, the sound, modem 
Belgian painter who produced in 1873 the vast 
picture on the upper wall of the Atrium of the 



BELGIUM 25 



Museum. Then to our hotel, where we all packed 
into various trunks what we wished to start next 
day by petite vitesse to Tours or to Paris; and into a 
suit-case apiece for the three men of the party, and 
into the little automobile trunk for the two ladies, 
the well selected necessaries for our many succes- 
sive weeks of automobiling. Now petite vitesse is 
indeed a misnomer for it is not quick at all. When 
we reached Tours, more than three weeks later, the 
trunks intended for that place had just arrived. 
But enough. Returning early, we slept the sleep 
of happy tourists just freed from rubber-mattressed 
berths at sea. 



Date 


Started 
at 


From 


To 


Kilo- 
metres 


Arrived 


Runnii 
lime 


ig Remarks 


Wednesday 
7/20/10 


3.ro 
4.20 


Antwerp 
Mechlin 


Mechlin 
Brussels 


20 
19 

39 


4-05 
6.00 


2.33 


Lunch at Hotel 
Weber, Antwerp, 
good; Hotel 
- Wiltcheis, indif- 
ferent. 



My brother-in-law and I going to Edwards & 
Co. at ten o'clock got the car away from the dock 
at 1 1. 1 5 and toured Antwerp, that half- moon of a 
city with the Scheldt as its chord, and having some 
175,000 inhabitants. We examined with great care 
Antwerp's splendid, extended, and complicated 
docks constructed by Napoleon in 1804-13; then, 



26 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

pressed for time, we viewed very hurriedly the fine 
Municipal Building, her Zoological Garden, her old 
churches and markets, the fine park, the old Han- 
seatic House, her surrounding boulevards which 
until 1859 were the sites of her ancient fortifications, 
her powerful new ones, and the Plantin Museum 
with its wonderful collection appertaining to the 
early printing and publishing done by that noted 
family. Putting off the best to the last — the Musee 
Plantin, — we were forced reluctantly to omit it 
until some later visit to ancient Antwerp. The 
city is yet vigorous because inhabited by a very 
intelligent and hard-working population, with a 
domestic commerce fed by much of the best 
territory of the richest country, acre for acre, in 
Europe, and by vast foreign, water-borne trade as 
well. It is true that she has never regained her 
pre-eminence in wealth and trade among European 
cities which she lost through dispersals and 
slaughter under the Inquisition and Spanish sol- 
diery about 1500, but today she is the arsenal and 
best fortified city of Belgium, and leads all Belgian 
cities in diversified business. 

We left Antwerp, at 3.10, after a good well- 
served luncheon at Plotel Weber. Now this book 



BELGIUM 27 



of mine, founded on a commonplace book in which 
I recorded each day's doings, may be most wel- 
comed as an itinerary with comments as to 
scenery, history, roads, or other things seen or 
experimented with, such as hotels, inns, or food, 
hours of starting and stopping, time and distance 
between such various stops, etc. Therefore after 
each day's date I shall record our hour of starting, 
time and distance to the luncheon place, with simi- 
lar data as to our dining-place and night's lodging. 
To make all this doubly available for any traveller 
who may wish to follow me, I shall also incorporate 
the information in a table at the end of the book. 
We were off for Brussels, at 3.10 p.m., but not 
before buying a hat-box for the ladies, to whom 
my brother-in-law and I are slaves. They said a 
proper hat-box was imperative. They said so. 
So it was. The roadbed was of heavy pave, which 
is to say, very large Belgian block. It was very 
fair going. And as we passed field after field well- 
cultivated and frequently bounded by lines of 
poplars or elms, trimmed high to secure fagots, 
and to allow sunshine and wind freely to pass over 
the fields, I thought that in the future this custom 
would be followed in Maryland with great benefit 



28 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

to the appearance of the country and to our fine 
wood supply as wood and land become more valu- 
able through increased demand for them. The fine 
Belgian cows (Holsteins), the tremendous draught 
horses, the roads, all show the response of the 
population to the need for intensive cultivation of 
every resource. A hundred years of peace and a 
rational individualism with local or civic co-opera- 
tion have finally wrought such unity of effort 
throughout the kingdom that today it is the most 
populous, the wealthiest, the most perfected, and 
most contented country of Europe. There, ever 
since the great Julius Ceesar gave them their 
start nineteen hundred years ago, thoughtfulness 
and thrift have intermittently at periods carried 
the individual steadily forward. 

National wars have checked that progress; 
Dutch ownership and the closing of the mouth of 
the Scheldt to foreign trade in order to favour 
Amsterdam and Rotterdam scotched this advance; 
the Spanish oppression in the days of the Inqui- 
sition cost the Belgians many a life and much 
treasure, and forced many to emigrate to England, 
there to follow their textile trades in quiet and in 
religious freedom to the great benefit of England 



BELGIUM 



and civilization. Settling chiefly in the Midland 
counties, they recruited the blood for the Puritan 
reforms in Cromwell's day and for the American 
New England settlement, and helped the settle- 
ment of Cape Colony; but they did not extirpate 
from Belgium, nor from Holland, the individual 
worth of its citizenship. When national expression 
of that was denied in the crush of armaments, the 
Netherlander continued in repression his individual 
growth towards all the blessings of enlightened 
freedom. Thus was possible a marvellous national 
expression of liberty whenever external violence 
was removed. Thus it was that where the spirit 
of individual freedom developed so rapidly in the 
Napoleonic era throughout the world it found 
Belgic life ready for co-operation towards any 
sound end of citizenship. Europe's eras of 1830 
and 1848 pushed forward that citizenship's self- 
consciousness. Gradually a national party calling 
itself the Socialist Party, but asking for nearly 
every sound right of the individual worker, grew 
into an efhcient organization, until some twenty 
years ago it so entirely obtained all the reforms it 
had asked that it disbanded. A few years later, 
however, there was another outbreak over the 



30 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

hours and wage of labour. The questions were 
peacefully settled, and the Party sleeps again. 
For a while a weighted individual influence was 
secured to the Belgian voter by giving him if 
single one vote, and two if married; an additional 
one if a university graduate, and so on, with the 
result that all of a man's objective pohtical quali- 
fications counted. 

What is the summum bonum in government? 
Is it not the right to freedom as distinguished 
from licence? Democracy is logically the perfect 
vehicle for that. But if, as in the case of Belgium, 
assured neutrality and a permanent chief executive 
called a king best satisfy the needs of a people, it 
would seem that all the best blessings of democracy 
have for them come that way. Pope was wrong 
when he wrote, 

"For forms of government let fools contest, 
Whate'er is best administered is best, " 

for nothing can compensate for the glorious growth 
individually and collectively which follows sound 
unit self-government. 

But my thoughts are running away with me as 
our good car with its record of twelve thousand 



BELGIUM 31 



miles already that year is bearing us towards 
Mechlin. Pardon me, for it is hard to find in all 
the history of the world any such six million of 
people constituting a nation or a section thereof, 
who have for so long contributed so much towards 
enlightened Christian development as has little 
Belgium. Its sections and cities are very individual 
too, and in many other ways stimulate the con- 
sideration of the open-minded traveller. Here 
is an oft quoted testimony to some of those 
differentiations : 

" Nohilihus Bruxella viris, Antwerpia nummis, 
Gandavum laqueis, formosis Bruga pnellis, 
Lovanium doctis, gaiidet Mechlina stultis,'^ 

which is, translated, "Brussels rejoices in noble 
men, Antwerp in money, Ghent in halters, ' Bruges 
in pretty girls, Louvain in learned men, and 
Malines in fools." 

But there in the distance is the Malines (Mech- 
lin) Cathedral's tall unfinished tower, 324 feet 
high. We soon stop at its base and enter its great 
nave, 306 feet long and 89 feet high. Fire and 

^ A reference to the frequent punishment visited upon the 
people of Ghent because of their turbulence. 



32 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

vandalism have greatly injured its decorations. 
But a Van Dyck altar-piece — The Crucifixion, — 
some marbles, and some handsome wood-carvings 
help to keep it notable. It is being skilfully 
restored. Spaciousness and a hard rigidity are its 
chief characteristics. After chatting with some 
mischievous boys who played about the cathedral 
and answered a few of our questions, we made 
them happy by the gift of some small change and 
resumed our way over more pave to Brussels. 
Into that "little Paris," we drove at six o'clock, 
and, following the instructions of a fellow voyager 
on the Vaderland, stopped at "H6tel Wiltcher," 
Boulevard de Waterloo, near the head of Rue 
Namur. It was severely appointed, worn-down, 
of the pension-hotel order, and supplied rather 
poor food. However, it did fairly well except as to 
baths, and had an interesting little garden, and 
for the good night's rest we there enjoyed we were 
duly grateful. By the way, during table d'hote 
dinner the English clergyman in charge at Gibral- 
tar, whom "they" and I had met there in 1909, 
chatted with us very pleasantly. He said that the 
arid, hot, and monotonous conditions of life on 
"The Rock" made annual outings to northern 





o 



p^ 




BELGIUM 33 



surroundings most desirable — nay, necessary for 
health. 



Thursday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Remarks 

at metres at time 

7/21/10 10.50 Brussels Waterloo 14 11.30 Poor lunch and 

'■ 12.20 Waterloo Brussels 14 i.oo dinner at Wilt- 

Cher's. Much of 

28 1.20 our run to Water- 

loo was through 
the streets of 
Brussels and 
along a dirt road 
which for much 
of its course bor- 
dered the beau- 
tiful Park of 
Laeken, King 
Leopold's coun- 
try house. 



My brother-in-law and I called on our Ambassa- 
dor, Charles Page Bryan, whom I had not seen 
since our student days at the University of Vir- 
ginia. He was visiting in the country. We failed 
to meet, for when he called on us that afternoon 
with a request that we come to luncheon next day 
we were out and next morning early we had to 
leave Brussels. However "they" and I viewed 
Waterloo's fateful battle-field from the top of the 
monumental Lion's Mount and the museum, and 
heard the guide chant his circumstantial descrip- 
tion of it all, and agreed that Hugo's chapter in 
Les Miserahles on Waterloo and Baedeker's suc- 
cinct story were preferable. Then we rejoined my 



34 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

bride at Wiltcher's, where she had been nursing 
a slight headache and writing some letters, and 
we all had luncheon together, and talked about 
Waterloo — Napoleon's delay in placing his troops 
and opening the battle because of an uninter- 
rupted nap ; about the hidden road which was used 
for the desperate cavalry charge under Ney, and 
the rising of Wellington's third line (Wellington 
had originated that third line in battle tactics) 
behind the crest of the hill to surprise and repulse 
the wavering French forces. How Grouchy's 
troops failed to intercept the Prussians under 
Blucher — brave old Marshal " Vorwaerts" — who 
reached Waterloo and delivered to Napoleon his 
coup-de- grace. Six previous actions had Napoleon 
won in the close operations immediately preceding 
Waterloo Day, one of them, Montheron, by send- 
ing troops through a sunken road to successfully 
surprise his foes. Not his star, but his country 
and character had worn out in the fight of the last 
ten years of his dominance against the reasonable 
interests of all the rest of Europe. Had he stopped 
his warring some ten years earlier he would have 
been credited with vastly helping civilization, and 
his crown would doubtless have come down to 



BELGIUM 35 



rulers of his lineage. Or had he married the 
Russian instead of the Austrian Princess after 
divorcing Josephine, France and Russia might 
have portioned Poland and much of Austria and 
"rustled it" successfully over Continental Europe 
and perhaps have brought England to terms. 

But I am digressing again and on a very well 
worn theme this time. I will merely add that 
building operations are about to invade the field 
of Waterloo, which is now being farmed intensively, 
and that an international effort to thwart its 
sacrifice to the builder is now (1914) being fostered. 
But to resume : After a poor luncheon, traveller 
who may read this chart, we all visited the Brussels 
Exposition which was a small affair compared 
with the American Centennial Exposition at 
Philadelphia in 1876; and a very small one, dealing 
with few exhibits indeed, in comparison with that 
at Chicago and other recent American exhibitions. 
A quiet Httle "Midway" was in evidence. The 
first thing I saw in Brussels was a glorious loan 
collection of Van Dyck portraits gotten together 
in honour of the Exposition. 

The parking of the city, its boulevards, and many 
fine public buildings proved to be a very creditable 



36 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

copy in miniature of Paris. The history of Brussels 
is interesting too. It early tended to develop the 
textile arts of all varieties; to-day it is notable 
especially for "Brussels lace." During the first 
four centuries only seven families of the nobility 
were allowed to build stone houses within its walls, 
which were pierced by seven gates, each one 
guarded by one of those seven families, and opened 
on no pretext except between 3.30 a.m. to 9 p.m. 
in summer, and 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter. These 
gates lead to the Public Square. On January 19, 
1 1 01, the watchman at one of these gates saw 
a notable procession approaching. It was the 
remnant of a force of Brussels Knights and citi- 
zens who in 1096 had followed Godfrey of Bouillon 
in the First Crusade and who had long been given 
up for dead. Festivities followed, and it is stated 
that the returned Crusader husbands stayed so 
long over feast and wine that their wives carried 
them off on their shoulders to bed= This is known 
as "The Ladies' Watch" {La Veillee des Dames), 
and is re-enacted in some parts of Brussels on 
each 19th of January. Like the other chief cities 
of Belgium, Brussels witnessed the development 
and leadership of a fine type of burgesses, who 



BELGIUM 37 



gradually wrung from their feudal overlords local 
self-government which phase of government slowly- 
filtered down to the commonalty termed "White 
hoods." 

Architecturally the mediaeval and the modern 
are found plentifully in Brussels. But in 1695, 
the French under Marshal Villeroi battered down 
many of the fine old buildings. Brussels impressed 
me as having very self-consciously taken Paris 
as a definite model and as having successfully 
copied it, though afar off indeed. Brussels is 
surely very elegant, Hvely, attractive, and modern. 
One personal experience impressed me forcibly. 
Looking skyivard as I walked along one of the 
wooded boulevards I saw very high in the air my 
first view of an aeroplane which dashed across my 
line of vision like a dream spectre and was lost to 
sight. But we had to leave Brussels for the 
Ardennes, so we consulted our maps and prepared 
for a fairly early start next day. 



Friday 
7/22/10 



Started From 


To 


Kilo- Arrived 


Running 


Remarks 


at 




metres at 


lime 




10.43 Brussels 
3.2s Namur 


Namur 
Rochefort 


58 1.05 
74 6.40 




Lunch at H6tel 
d'Harscamp. 
Excellent dinner 
at H6tel Biron. 






132 


5-35 


Fair quality, 
clean, and cheap. 



38 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Starting at 10.45 A.M. in the glorious sunshine, 
and cool and dustless weather, which was vouch- 
safed us during our whole motor trip except for a 
heavy downpour of rain I shall describe when I 
come to Rochefort, and the occasional rains we 
experienced at night-time, we ran at a rational 
speed, first over good pave and then over good 
macadam roads, on a straight line almost due 
south-east to Namur at the confluence of the 
Sambre and Meuse, on the mountain boundary of 
the beautiful Ardennes country. Everywhere was 
intensive cultivation, though less evident when we 
had well progressed. The Ardennes! How lovely 
is the whole region. Numerous small rivers and 
streamlets; fine forests principally of fir, which 
has been freely planted to reforest the cut-over 
oaklands which had long persisted from Caesar's 
day; quaint, clean villages; some marks of tourist 
invasion and more of the summer outings of the 
Belgian city folks; much country undisturbed by 
either; good roads, many of them dirt roads; and 
a general impression of rational, self-contained 
success and comfort and peace characterized it. 
Not only is the Ardennes region all that, but it 
also abounds in good, clean inns, where charges 



BELGIUM 39 



are most moderate and entertainment reasonable- 
ness itself. At one place our landlady reminded 
us that we had not been at luncheon and therefore 
were to be credited with its cost ! As testimony of 
all this I find I jotted down the menu and the cost 
of this Namur luncheon, to wit : 3 fr. 50 centimes — - 
that is, less than seventy cents. The menu was 
fresh salmon, pate of chicken with lettuce salad, 
mutton chop and spinach, pastry. That despatched , 
together with a bottle of the fair white native 
wine grown sparingly in the valley between the 
Sambre and the Meuse and roughly comparable 
to Moselle, we viewed the town. Various sieges 
have left of its ancient buildings only the belfry 
erected in the eleventh century and restored in the 
fifteenth, and the Palais de Justice (formerly the 
Monastery of St. Albinius) built in 1464. These 
and a good, rather modern church or two, clean 
village-like streets, and the fine bridge over the 
Meuse constitute the agreeable and very kindly 
and complacent attractions of this town of some 
25,000 inhabitants. 

We were destined for Rochefort in the very 
heart of the Ardennes country by nightfall. So at 
3.25 P.M. we departed and via Dinant, Givet, and 



40 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Beauraing motored along very good, though rolHng 
roads. On we went, gradually ascending the valley 
of the little mountain stream called the Loninne, 
which rising beyond elevated Rochefort finds the 
Meuse at Dinant. The Ardennes varies in eleva- 
tion from 600 to 2000 feet. The hills grow 
gradually steeper and more wooded. The valley 
views ahead and behind and to the westward 
were ever more sweetly wild, and alternate sun- 
shine and cloud tempered them all. 

The clouds gained control of the horizon. 
There in front of us they were turning from grey 
to plum colour, to orange, to greyish black, and 
now and then, afar off, came a show of lightning 
and a grumble of thunder. "Tom" — our clever 
chauffeur, who achieved a perfect record in hand- 
ling the automobile throughout our whole trip in 
Europe — now let her go, for the storm was thicken- 
ing and bearing down directly upon us. Enjoying 
the kaleidoscopic play of light among the cooling, 
drifting air currents, we sped along the acclivity, 
a mile or more, to rock-built, rock-ribbed, rock- 
founded Rochefort, crowned by a fortress-castle, 
once the stronghold of the Counts de Rochefort, 
one of whose descendants was the late duellist and 



BELGIUM 41 



litterateur, Henri de Rochefort, of Paris. We won! 
But just as we stopped the Packard automobile — 
"Maryland 265" at 640 p.m. in front of Hotel 
Biron, the clouds now grown blue-black opened 
their flood gates and revenged their lost race. 
Once only and that in semi-tropical Jacksonville, 
Florida, have I seen such a copious downpour of 
rain. In both instances the street flooded in a few 
minutes from curb to curb. But in Jacksonville 
there was no excitement. In Rochefort all was 
excitement. The populace rushed to the fronts of 
their houses, and many of them into the streets 
and became frantically active. For example, 
H6tel Biron waiter labelled No. 3 proudly and 
with the grand air carried a waitress in his arms to 
her home across the flooded street. Crowds battled 
with the water which had backed up from the 
surface and threatened to flow through basement 
windows giving on the pavements. In our hotel, 
a thick spout of rain rushed from the roof against a 
loosened window-pane of the pantry whence for 
fifteen minutes "boots" and chambermaid and the 
redoubtable waiter No. 3 kept wildly brushing out 
the falling water beneath the door, constantly ex- 
claiming, "Le Deluge! Le Deluge!" Meanwhile, 



42 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

"Madame," who kept the hotel, was frantically 
grabbing her head with both hands. Then the 
electric lights went out. That delayed our getting 
rooms, which we made bold to request again. 
But Pierre, the "porter," merely said to us over 
and over again, in French of course, "Yes, rooms, 
rooms, Madame, will soon be found, I think, 
yes." Evidently we were in excitable, passionate, 
Celtic, Walloon Belgium, and not in the stolid 
Flemish portion of the country. Soon candles 
were lit and set here and there, some of them in 
bottles. "Madame" stopped grabbing her hair 
and we had rooms; "souper" illuminated by the 
candles mounted in bottles and other improvised 
holders and by a few lamps. The rain stopped, 
and we strolled out over the wet Belgian blocks of 
the streets rather than on the narrow pavements, 
almost to the foot of the ruins of the old fortress, the 
" Chateau deRochefort. " Later we retired, to sleep 
in excellent and clean, but abnormally short, beds. 

You will please recall that the nine provinces 
in Belgium, are Liege, Namur, Luxemburg, Lim- 
burg, Hainault, Antwerp, Brabant, and East and 
West Flanders, of which the first five may be said 
to be of Walloon — that is, Celtic blood, and lie 



BELGIUM 43 



towards France, while the remaining four are of 
Flemish — that is, Teutonic blood, and lie towards 
Germany. The French language, disposition, and 
manners flourish in the former, while Germanic 
influences, modified by Flemish literature, customs, 
and architecture, sway the latter. Some three 
fifths of Belgium's total population of say, 8,000- 
000, are Flemish. Happy it is when, as in the case 
of the population of Antwerp, Walloon dash and 
passionate quickness blend with Flemish (Teu- 
tonic) thoroughness and perseverance. 

Again I have strayed from the good, and widish, 
and wandering road awaiting our automobile. I 
take up that running after our night's repose at 
Rochefort. 



Saturday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals 

at metres at time 

7/23/10 10.00 Rochefort Cavern 6 10.30 Lunch at H6tel 

of Han Biron. Clean. 

" 12.30 Cavern of Rochefort 6 i.oo Dinner at Hotel 

Han de I'Europe. 

" 2.10 Rochefort Spa 70 7. SO E.^ellent. 

82 6.40 



Breakfasting at 9.30 a.m. we went in the 
machine to the limestone Cavern of Han, which 
means in Walloon "hole in the ground." Into it 
burrows the river Lesse, and, except for a little 



44 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

branching streamlet, it is not visible for about two 
miles, when as a very placid stream, wide and deep, 
it reappears, and the tourists leave the cavern 
in large boats upon its surface. It was a curious 
sensation to turn from the Lesse plunging into the 
earth and enter a little opening in the mountain, 
and then for an hour and three quarters to traverse 
miles of rough-smooth passageways lit by electric 
lights, and big, similarly lit caverns, fantastic with 
stalactites and stalagmites, formed from Hme-water 
drippings from above and by up-spoutings of lime- 
water from the sunken Lesse, and then to debouch 
on the same river come again to the kingdom of 
daylight, a stream bearing us slowly for five 
minutes toward the patch of blue-grey sky that 
was framed in the cavern's gaping exit. The great 
Hall of the Cave, where we drank coffee and port 
wine in a restaurant, is dome-shaped and about 
1 60 feet in width, length, and height. It is spaced 
midway between the Lesse flowing some 230 feet 
below its floor and the mountain's top. Such 
freaks of nature seem surprising except to the 
inhabitants of limestone countries. They know 
that rivers and streams often disappear thus. 
There are many of these streams in mountainous 



BELGIUM 45 



Belgium. And near Lewisburg, West Virginia, on 
the limestone side of the Greenbrier River, I have 
an acquaintance who availed himself of such 
knowledge in planning the drainage of his house, 
and merely led it into the openings of a deep 
limestone cavern knowing full well that the stream 
at its base would safely receive and bear it away. 

In water effects Cavern d'Han surpasses Luray 
Cave in Page County, Virginia, and so in the 
spouting- water formation of stalagmites; but not 
in variety of formation of stalactites and stalag- 
mites. Like all limestone caverns the carbonate of 
lime has been changed by acids into a form soluble 
in water which then removing it leaves a cavern. 

Having greatly enjoyed our visit to this fine cave 
we returned to Hotel Biron, Rochefort, for an 
indifferent luncheon at one o'clock, and at 2.10 
began a 70-kilometre run to Spa, for a short time 
in a gentle shower, passing in succession on the 
lovely winding road the hamlets of Jenvelle, 
Hargement, Bomal, Camblain-au-Pont, Remou- 
champs, La Reid, and La Reid-gagne. That part 
of the run about La Reid was pretty steep. And 
as we drew very near to Spa the beauty of its ad- 
jacent valley asserted itself in mellowed woods and 



46 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

watered meadows. We enjoyed also, the excellent 
rooms, food, and baths at H6tel de 1' Europe 
when we found it at 7.50 p.m. The concert 
in the great deserted casino of the Kur Haus was 
very enjoyable later in the evening. The stoppage 
of the gambling tables at Spa has dispersed its 
once thronging patrons. We found it a great, 
handsome, unshrunken shell of a place. There is 
talk of reopening the gaming tables. B ut we gave no 
thought to that that night. We gladly retired after 
a delightfully diversified day of perfect travelling. 

Sunday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals 

at metres at time 

7/24/10 12. OS Spa Huy so 3-os Lunch at Aigle 

Noir. Very 
" 4.00 Huy Brussels 90 6.40 good indeed. 

Dinner at H6tel 

de r Europe. 

140 5.40 Very good 

indeed. 

"Coffee and rolls in rooms at 8 a.m." reads my 
commonplace book. Then it seems that each of us 
indulged in a bath of natural, sparkling Spa water, 
temperature 95 degrees, cost i franc, time 15 
minutes, in fine and spacious rooms in the great 
and almost deserted Pavilion des Bains. Follow- 
ing Mark Twain's Jim Smiley's remark about his 
Jumping Frog, "I no see anything about this bath 
as is better as any other bath" except that it i§ 




o 



ClJ 

B 



H 



BELGIUM 47 

very buoyant. Then we inspected the various 
great water drinking pavilions and the sparse 
little village, returned to our hotel, selected our 
route on our local automobile map, and so left 
shady, quiet, beautiful, deserted Spa for Brussels 
again. 

Our route was via Marteau, Village La Reid, 
Remouchamps, Ayville, Camblain-au-Pont, Es- 
neaux, Asseny, to Huy, where we lunched well at 
Aigle Noir at 3.15, tired and hungry. At four we 
started for Brussels via Hannut, Louvain, and 
Tervueren. At Hannut a Sunday circus was in 
full blast. The rooster ginger cakes, fruits, soft 
drinks and trinkets were for sale about the tent, 
and all about wore smiling faces, and in the far 
background I think grog-selling of the "speak- 
easy" variety was going on. But there was no 
boisterousness. 

At Brussels the Wiltcher could not give us rooms. 
The H6tel de I'Europe did so most satisfactorily 
on the delightful Place Royale. There, in very 
sophisticated Brussels, in a very pleasant, large, 
public dining-room overlooking the splendid 
equestrian statue of the leader of the First Crusade, 
the gallant Godfrey de Bouillon, whose pictur- 



48 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

esque demesne Bouillon is now part of Belgium, we 
dined very well. They served us a good Moselle 
wine. I should say that we found that wines of 
good brands can be safely used in the large towns 
of Belgium and France, and in the small towns in 
the wine districts. Otherwise, they are apt to be 
bad and heavily loaded with bad brandy, and very 
punishing to one's head and digestive system. 
I believe that many tourists are sickened, some of 
them, perhaps, permanently, by such vicious 
wines. After dinner I strolled in the spacious park 
in front of the New Royal Palace with "the Lady 
who owns me" and enjoyed the varicoloured 
electric lights and music with which some fete 
was being celebrated. And so to bed. 

Monday Meals 

l/^Sf'i'O Breakfast at a reasonable hour, 

9.30, at H6tel de I'Europe. Very 
good. Lunch at Hotel de I'Europe, 
and dinner at Grand H6tel Uni- 
versel, Ghent. Roughly good. 

At 10.30 visited the Gallery of Statuary and 
Paintings at Academy of Fine Arts. Statuary 
far excels the collection of paintings, especially 
among the modem works. Meunier's splendid 
bronzes would alone assure that. Not only are 
they fine in poise, modelling, and force, but em- 



BELGIUM 49 



phasis of genius is laid upon them because they so 
truly represent the workingman stripped for 
various labours that perfectly typify Belgium. 
That relation which the convincingly inevitable 
best phrasing in prose or verse bears to genius in 
writing is held by Meunier in plastic form. Along 
similar lines in literature and painting Belgium is 
finding herself. After so much of smooth pretti- 
ness in the grand art world, the lover of sculpture 
turns to Meunier of Belgium and to the greater 
Rodin of France with deep delight. 

We went to our bankers for mail, and then to 
Hotel de I'Europe for lunch, which was good. 
Then came another treat in art, for at the wonder- 
ful "Loan Collection of Ancient Art," gotten 
together for the Brussels Exposition and its shining 
great success, we viewed a marvellous range of 
Rubens's pictures, though very many of his 
greatest were lacking. But the Van Dyck Collec- 
tion was the best I have ever seen of his pictures 
and showed some of his greatest work. Is Van 
Dyck of the first class with Rubens, Velasquez, 
Titian, Da Vinci, Raphael, Rembrandt, and a few 
great others? If not, he is in a class by himself 
which except in breadth of genius equals theirs. 



50 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Then to the Wiertz collection of horrors per- 
petrated by a crazy genius who in the end killed 
himself. Here is a case of art for art's sake 
so dominating the mind that madness in art 
followed by intellectual decay was the result. 
Then we went to the Aviation Field in the suburb 
of Stockel just outside and south of Brussels, to 
attend an "Aviation Meet." Alas! a gusty wind 
kept the aeroplanes in their distant hangars which 
we patiently viewed for an hour from our seats in 
the Grand Stand. Then all aboard for Ghent! 
Thirty minutes we were in running through 
Brussels to Laeken, King Leopold II. 's splendid 
Palace and Park. Our way continued over pave 
and between avenues of beautiful elms or horse- 
chestnuts, until at 9.30 we came to Ghent on the 
Scheldt and three other rivers, and spent a com- 
fortable night at Grand Hotel Universel, Rue de la 
Station No. 20, where the food is fairly good, and 
all the charges very small. A town fete had 
filled all the better-class hotels. Our bathroom was 
a very poor one. ' ' Our ' ' bedroom * ' Numero i bis " 
was a wonder indeed. Fifty-three dishes of about 
fifteen inches diameter were set in the ceiling and 
upper walls, and the bedstead was six and a half 



BELGIUM 51 

feet wide and only six feet long. Why! Why!! 
Why ! ! ! True, most of the beds I had encountered 
in Belgium were uncomfortably short for my six- 
foot self, and implied, I believe, that the Belgians 
are rather a short race, but why such a threatening 
ceiling and wall dressing of many or any plates, 
and why such a disproportionate bed? However, 
no fall of plates broke our rest and, of course, it 
would have been a malicious act to roll out of a 
bed of such ample breadth. All went well. 



Tuesday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running 

at metres at time Meals 

7/26/ro 11.30 Ghent Bruges 43 i-oo Lunch at H6tel 

" 4.00 Bruges Ostende 38 5.40 de Flanders. 

Very good. Din- 

ner at H6tel 

8r 3.10 Splendide. Con- 

ventionally 
good. 



Again "a reasonable hour" breakfast, — 9.30 
o'clock. During its discussion we learned from 
the establishment's solitary, weary and worn and 
thin waiter — who informed us that he worked some 
nineteen hours a day — that this Grand Hotel 
Universel was run by an English ex-valet and his 
wife, an ex-maid, and that in ordering the bed six- 
foot long and six-and-a-half- foot wide, their instruc- 
tions had been reversed. No apologies for the 



52 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

fifty- three plates were offered; none could have 
been acceptable. 

At 10.30 we went to see the large and awkward- 
looking Cathedral of St. Bavon, but its interior is 
very handsome. The altar stalls are of very finely 
carved dark wood. This cathedral, like most of 
those I had seen in the Netherlands, in France, or 
in Spain, has far more light within than is the case, 
as a rule, with those I have seen in more Northern 
latitudes. Why is that? Did the eye of the archi- 
tect attune itself to the more brilliant white lights 
of the South? St. Bavon is too light and too colour- 
ful and too mixed in style to be truly churchly. 
However, I must point out the gem of Flemish 
painting, The Adoration of the Lamb, by John and 
Hubert Van Eyck, which in triptych form hangs in 
original as to the centre, but as to wings in copy, 
in a chapel of St. Bavon's. The picture's upper 
right and left wings once showing a very realistic 
Adam and Eve were deemed too broad, and so 
were sold to the Brussels National Museum, where 
in 1 86 1 the Government caused skin kertles to 
be painted on them. The original lower right and 
left wings of the picture are now in the National 
Picture Gallery in Berlin. The colouring and 



BELGIUM 53 



drawing and verisimilitudes are certainly very 
striking. 

Next we went to see the Castle of the Counts of 
Flanders where our English John of Gaunt (Ghent) 
was born in 1340. It is a moated, and many 
turreted, loopholed, and strongly battlemented 
stronghold of the overlords who sought thus to 
keep the unruly population of Ghent in order. It 
has been somewhat restored. It is interesting to 
mark the customary development of the typical 
Flemish town, remembering that all Belgium north 
of a line drawn from Liege in the east through 
Brussels to Calais on the English Channel is 
Flemish, and all south of that line Walloon. 
Leaving agricultural pursuits a few persons formed 
a Commune and took up home manufacturing and 
trading. They built a church. Next they sur- 
rounded their settlement with a wall ; weaving on a 
large scale came about and large markets to dispose 
of the resultant cloths, and as those markets were 
held round a church there came the name Kerke- 
messe (Kermess) , f rom i^ery^e (church) , Afe^^e (mar- 
ket) , and it yet indicates a fair. Following upon the 
wealth and character resulting from the thrifty 
growth of these weaving communities came their 



54 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

struggles for self-government, which, little by 
little, they wrung from their counts or overlords. 
Finally, about the middle of the fifteenth century, 
Ghent and her great sister cities were virtually 
free. But then through the marriage of Mary 
Duchess of Burgundy with the Austrian Archduke 
Maximilian, Flanders became an apanage of 
Austria, which after many bloody struggles, over- 
bore them finally in 1540 under Mary's grandson 
the famous Charles V., and took away their five- 
century-old virtual government of themselves. 

Many fine old Gothic buildings are to be found 
in Ghent. These are the Belfry, the Hotel de 
Ville, the churches of St. Jacques, St. Michaels, 
etc. And there is the quaint little old establish- 
ment of the city's beguinage, re-established just 
outside the town some forty years ago to make 
room for modern streets. It consists of a complete 
village of the old-time architecture, and is inhabited 
by unmarried women or widows of unblemished 
character who, upon paying an entrance fee of 
150 francs and no francs a year, can after a year's 
novitiate remain there as Sisters of Charity, leading 
a religious life and working for the support of 
the needy and the care of the sick, under control 



BELGIUM 55 



of a Grande Dame, a " Groot Jufrow, " whom they 
elect themselves. They can return to worldly 
life when they choose; but that choice is seldom 
exercised. There are some twenty such establish- 
ments in Belgium with about 1300 members, of 
whom about 1000 live in the outskirts of Ghent. 
Outside Belgium there exist only two beguinages 
(Beguinage — from Beggen, to beg), one in Amster- 
dam, and one in Breda, though the lower Rhine 
country once abounded in them. There is a 
distinct place for such beguinages in our country; 
some for women; some for men; for every other 
class is better cared for with us than is that of the 
decent and decayed tradesman or gentlefolk. 

Very regretfully we left quaint and characterful 
Ghent, and at 11.30 began our run over pave and 
macadam and through avenues of trees and by the 
old canal to the Scheldt, and then by the newer 
canal leading to Ostend, and so to Bruges by one 
o'clock. There we lunched well indeed — I find 
that my commonplace book has two scores beneath 
"well" — at H6tel de Flandres, after which that 
faithful book relates our visiting the ancient brick, 
Gothic cathedral of splendid interior proportions, 
St. Sauveur — which "is impressive except for 



56 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

its mixture of colours in building material." 
Then says that same authentic log we visited in the 
same neighbourhood the ancient church of Notre 
Dame whose Gothic architecture and elaborate 
interior were most interesting. Some of its pic- 
tures are masterly. Conspicuous among them is 
P. Pourbus's Transfiguration. And of note is the 
handsome metal plate which once decorated the 
tomb of Guimelda, sister of Harold, last Saxon 
King of England. But its greatest ornament is 
the magnificent tomb of Charles the Bold of 
Burgundy. There, in perpetual bronze, full 
length, recumbent, and in armour, with hands 
together and upraised in prayer and at his feet 
the Flemish Lion, rests upon a five-foot-high sar- 
cophagus, whose sides are filled with his armourial 
bearings, the last Burgundian Lord of the middle 
kingdom of Europe's Middle Ages. His great- 
great-grandson, Philip V. of Spain, husband of 
England's Mary I., caused Jongelieu of Antwerp, 
to construct this glorious tomb over Charles the 
Bold's remains, removed here from Nancy by 
Charles V. Wealth was his, and power, and a very 
rash courage too ; but he could not measure things 
as they were nor could he learn by experience. 




The Belfry of Bruges 



Photo De Clercq 



BELGIUM 57 



The modern freeman in the person of the Switzers 
dispelled Charles's dreams of conquest and felled 
the Knighthood of Burgundy twice; and at 
Nancy he died in disastrous battle. Beside his 
monument is the similar but finer one by Peter 
de Becker of Bavaria of Duke Charles's only child, 
his daughter Mary, through whose marriage to 
Maximilian, rich Burgundy and the Netherlands 
fell to the Austrian Empire. 

Then we went to the Hospital of St. John to 
view the splendid pictures by Memling and the 
treasured and handsome Reliquary of St. Ursula. 
The concentrated and wonderful colouring and 
richness and fineness of detail all of which are so 
characteristic of the Flemish school of art, are 
spoiled for me by such species of distortion of 
composition as I have on occasion experienced 
when looking through an aquarium. To illustrate : 
These paintings conspicuously lack the superb 
verisimilitude of Velasquez's works though they 
vie with them in colour and carefulness. 

Driving through sleepy old Bruges we saw 
numerous specimens of beautiful large old houses, 
and public buildings of excellent Gothic architect- 
ure, notably its superb belfry, some 350 feet high, 



58 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

which was used for many hundred years to ring 
out the workman to his work or to arms; and we 
passed through some fine public squares. Bruges 
was sealed unto itself when in 1490 the navigable 
channel of its stream, the Zwyn, silted up, and its 
merchants and guilds moved to Antwerp. Bruges 
went to sleep for four hundred years. 

A new ship canal now connects it with the North 
Sea. Again it is upbuilding. Gradually its 
mendicant population amounting to 15,000 out 
of a total of 45,000, will become workers, other 
workers will come ; the old buildings will be habited 
again, modern facilities and enterprises will fill the 
empty or waste or deserted places, and Bruges 
will stretch herself and awake. Time has treated 
the physical Bruges much as the sands have 
treated the ancient temples of Egypt. Each has 
proved about as permanent and deadening as the 
other. Bruges was as suppressed as both could 
have accomplished. But what can withstand 
modernism? Verily only principle. And there 
is no good reason why Bruges should not recover 
its long-lost youth. It is yet a Rip Van Winkle 
of a place. But some Western captain of real 
estate development could arouse interest and turn 



BELGIUM 59 



the land into wealth. The process would be nota- 
ble, but in a way, very lamentable, for Bruges is 
wondrous and beautiful, though mildewed with 
centuries of dulness. 

At four o'clock we left it, only half explored, 
for lively Ostend, its very opposite in character. 
We ran over pave most of the way and through the 
poorest countryside we had viewed in Belgium, 
and reached Ostend at 540. There we stopped 
at H6tel Splendide for the night and morrow. The 
hotel was good enough, but overbright, we thought, 
in decoration, and here and there were flashy-look- 
ing folk and some few who looked tough indeed. 
Here, we said, we shall probably see the very 
poorest type of social life, — the badly reared 
new-rich. We had heard nothing of the accommo- 
dations and were quite willing to sample a typical 
Ostend hotel. In the tip of the extremest style 
were the women's clothes, and their hats were very 
handsome and all extremely large. We had a 
conventionally good dinner at the Splendide, 
then strolled for a little while along the esplanade 
and among the sea-side shops, and so to bed, 
where for some time I was conscious that a high 
wind was blowing in from the sea, a damp air 



60 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

attacking us, and rain was threatening. Then 
I sank into a blessed sleep. 

Wednesday, y/zy/io. All day sunshine and a 
balmy breeze caressed us. Strolling about and 
visiting the shops entertained us. "My lady" 
told me that we saw much fine lace, chiefly 
Brussels, but she refused to accept any. I believe 
that my declared intention of paying full custom- 
house duty on all European purchases discouraged 
her somewhat ; and lacking nothing essential 
to a lady's wardrobe, she heartily preferred not 
to put upon me unnecessary expenditures. Happy 
indeed it is to gratify only real and healthy 
desires! Little things can indicate very great 
things. Here was I being furnished with an 
obvious proof of the breeding and character of the 
wife God had vouchsafed to me. And my heart 
rose in thankfulness. However Ostend may differ 
from other seaside places — and does it — ; except 
that it is more relaxed in conduct than are many, 
it shares the general tendency in seaside resorts 
to offer much cheap, shoddy jewelry and orna- 
ments for sale. 

The bathing hour was on us and the tide in the 
proper state. We prepared to sample the bathing. 



BELGIUM 6i 



There before the long esplanade stretched the 
wide, long beach of coarse sand. People sat 
beneath large umbrellas, sported on the sand, or 
made themselves into family groups in what 
looked like day housekeeping tents with wooden 
floors. Stylishly dressed people strolled along 
the landward edge of the beach and to the margin 
of the sea, along which were ranged, in several 
rows, bathhouses on wheels and painted in bright 
colours. Rental cost was according to their 
interior furnishing which ranged from bare neces- 
saries to carpeted floors, lace-curtained windows, 
etc. All we inspected were clean. Would we 
have a white one, cost i franc, a yellow one 2 
francs, a blue one 3 francs, or a de luxe one 10 
francs? In each case bathing-suits for two were 
supplied, also two rather small bath towels. 
Mounted in your vehicle, ten centimes secured 
you the service of a horse and man to wheel you 
into about four feet of water. "They" bathed. 
"We" viewed the general scene particularly. 
Women with scant skin-tight one-piece woven 
woollen bathing-suits were frequent, and red and 
blue tights looked like paint. And some of the 
women were very brazen. All along the water's 



62 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

edge for half a mile or more and dodging amongst 
the rows of "bathing machines" was an idle, 
dawdling throng of men and women. Camera 
men walked in the cold and sullen surf executing 
orders. The men bathers wore white or red or 
blue one-piece woven suits which were compara- 
tively decent. But altogether it was a rather 
tough crowd. 

Returning to Hotel Splendide we made a good 
lunch. And one of the party seeing "American 
cocktail" on the wine list ordered it, only to dis- 
cover that it was a raw compound based on poor 
Scotch whiskey. The wines at Ostend were poor. 
Why is that generally characteristic of wines and 
whiskies at seaside places the world over so far 
as I have experimented? At night we mingled 
with the moderate-sized and motley throng that 
paced the board esplanade. Amongst them was a 
great number of flashy women in skirts so hobbled 
as to look then like the height of the fashion 
of to-day. Having inspected the great Ktcr- 
saal and its dancers amidst thick tobacco smoke 
and learned after much inquiry that only mem- 
bers could get into the gambling hall, and that 
only by paying twenty francs for a season ticket. 



BELGIUM 63 



we withdrew to the open air and sat for a while 
upon the esplanade, which was at that late hour 
of the evening the scene apparently of adventurous 
flirtations on the part of many piratical-looking 
women and men. Soon we left for our hotel agree- 
ing that Ostend is indeed hard and coarse and com- 
mon. So much for "wide open Ostend." 

There is, however, a fine and worthy side to it, 
the basis of which is its fine and promising develop- 
ment as a seaport, — indeed it is the only preten- 
tious port along the total and pitiful little Belgian 
stretch of some thirty kilometers of sea-front. A 
good canal connects it with Bruges; scientific 
dredging has already given it a large, fair harbour 
and promises a better one, and it is as yet the 
nearest landing-place to England. Some day it 
may become the great foreign entrepot such as it was 
developing into in the days when Emperor Charles 
V. of Austria chartered the Ostend Company, 
intended to conduct trade with the East Indies. 
Austria traded it off to England, who sought thus 
to protect her East India Company. This cession 
was a part of the price for England's agree- 
ment to the "Pragmatic Sanction," that is, that 
Charles's daughter Maria Theresa should succeed 



64 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

him on the Austrian Throne. It is difficult to 
keep the harbour deep and open in face of the 
sea-swept sands, and its new and deep canal 
running down from Bruges has been given a 
mouth some eight kilometers to the eastward. 
However, Ostend with its 19,000 inhabitants and 
its spreading villa land and pleasant suburbs 
is Belgium's best seaside port and city, and stoutly 
claims to be "Queen of Continental Watering- 
Places" and looks down upon its ten or fifteen 
little rivals which dot the Belgian Ocean coast. 
But it is hard and coarse and new-rich, and oh, 
the army of "overfed and underbred" folk that 
are on parade there! 

Thursday, 7/28/10. Left Ostend at 1.50 p.m. 
after a conventional lunch at the over-gorgeous 
"H6tel Splendide, " and began a delightful seven- 
mile run over the customary roads to France at 
the border of Normandy. We ran for some 
time within sight, to the east, of the West Flanders 
canal, while we caught glimpses of the North Sea 
to the west. The second stage of our outing 
and the first of our motoring was behind us. What 
did I carry away of Belgium? Let me see. It 
is shaped like a Napoleon I. hat, whose base 



BELGIUM 65 



towards France is about 140 miles long, while 
the top is half that distance away. The North Sea 
end is about twenty- five miles and that adjoining 
the neutral Grand Duchy of Luxemburg and Ger- 
many is about seventy miles. It contains some- 
thing over 1 1 ,000 square miles, and about 7,500,000 
people which gives it an average density of popula- 
tion of some 650 to the square mile. In all Europe 
only Saxony exceeds that density. Some 4,500,- 
000 of Belgians inhabit Flemish, that is, low 
Dutch Belgiimi, and 3,000,000, Walloon that is, 
Celtic Belgium. North of a line drawn west 
towards Calais from the Belgian mid-eastern 
boundary live the "Flamands" and south of 
it the "Walloons." The acquisitiveness of the 
Walloon peasants has led them to remove for 
building purposes the ruins of ancient buildings 
destroyed during many devastating and virtually 
incessant wars, principally with France. So 
that "back to the earth again ancient and holy 
things" in the form of noble buildings have 
generally "fade(d) like a dream"; while many are 
the fine old structures surviving in the leading 
cities and districts of Flemish Belgium. 

The holiday land is either in or about the 



66 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

beautiful Ardennes country in the south-east or 
along the limited sea-coast. From near the mid- 
northern boundary the land tends slowly but 
increasingly to rise generally towards the south, 
until in places it is about 2000 feet high. The 
valley east of that ridge belongs to the northwardly 
flowing Meuse and its very numerous little tribu- 
taries; while the "lazy" Scheldt which is crooked 
too, and its yet more numerous natural affluents, 
and frequent canals, is the river of the Belgian 
coastal plain. The "winds from the western sea" 
so sweetly sung by Tennyson, have through history 
been driving the waves of the North Sea to move 
the North Sea sand against the Belgian coast, 
while gravity has helped the rains of centuries 
to carry surface soil into Belgian streams, with 
increasing ease as tillage grew, with the result of 
cutting off many of her cities such as Bruges, 
Ghent, etc., from the vast foreign shipping trade 
which they boasted when they were amongst the 
greatest cities of the world. 

To this hard treatment from Mother Nature 
was added the harshness of man towards Antwerp 
and its large sphere of business influence which 
could readily have been served by canal or canal- 



BELGIUM 67 



ized streams. For about two centuries and a 
half, until some forty-five years back, Holland, in 
order to favour her ports, especially Amsterdam 
and Rotterdam, exercised her ownership of the 
lower thirty miles of the Scheldt to forbid com- 
merce to use it to approach Antwerp. Thus 
the ship clearance of Antwerp was reduced from 
five hundred a day to only four or five ships a year ; 
and Antwerp withered. Then for a large sum, 
one third of it contributed by England, and the 
remainder by other trading foreign nations and 
by Belgium, Holland sold the right of egress by 
her portion of the Scheldt; and Antwerp has 
thriven since. 

How is it that what is now Belgium, rather poor 
of soil, the "cockpit of Europe," with sea access 
limited by wind and sand and man, has become 
one of the most prosperous, most populous, freest, 
and most uniformly matured amongst the nations 
of the world? In searching for the answer to 
that question there came to me the reply of the 
Spartan of old as to the chief product of Sparta. 
" Men, " said he. So has it been with the Nether- 
lands — Holland and Belgium — throughout their 
history of nine hundred years. But in place of 



68 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Spartan hardness and rigorous military training, 
Belgium — to keep to our special muttons — relied 
upon work, thrift, and community co-operation. 
Nine general communities were centrally dominat- 
ed: West Flanders by Bruges; East Flanders by 
Ghent; Antwerp by the City of Antwerp; Brabant 
by Brussels or Malines ; and Limburg by the City of 
Limburg, constituting Flemish Belgium. Simi- 
larly Hainault dominated by Tournai ; Luxemburg 
by Clervaux; Namur by the City of Namur; 
and Liege by the City of Leige, constituting 
Walloon Belgium. Cassar conquered Belgium and 
•for four hundred years it belonged to Rome. 
Over each of its nine districts, we may say, was an 
overlord responsible to the ruler of some great 
power which had gathered the low countries — 
the Netherlands, for our special purpose Belgium — 
into its limits. 

For another four hundred years those overlords 
were of the Salic Franks throughout the present 
Walloon Belgium ; and of the Teutons in the pre- 
sent Flemish Belgium. Then the mighty Charle- 
magne assumed them all. The Treaty of Verdun 
(843) assigned the Walloon group to France, the 
Flemish group to Germany, and the old nine in- 



BELGIUM 69 



choate overlordships, section by section, lapsed 
into independent feudal principalities. 

In 1385 Burgundy annexed most of Flemish 
Belgium, and secured most of the remainder of 
the present Belgium by the beginning of the 
fifteenth century. Wealth, art, and elegance throve 
splendidly for a hundred years. Then came the 
overlordship of Austria, in 1477, through the 
marriage of the Duchess Mary, daughter and sole 
heiress of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, to Maxi- 
milian, heir of the Austrian throne. This may be 
said to have led to the Spanish overlordship 
beginning in 1555, when Charles V. abdicated 
in favour of Philip 11. who had been husband of 
Bloody Mary of England, and was the Arch- 
Supporter of the Inquisition. Under him the 
wars of the religious persecution of Belgium spread 
and devastated the country and so the Netherlands 
revolted in 1568. What is now Holland gained 
its independence. What is now Belgium failed 
to do so until some thirty years later, when it 
was ruled with great wisdom and clemency by 
Philip Second's daughter, Clara Isabella Eugenia, 
to whom he had ceded it on her marriage with 
Albert, Archduke of Austria, the Spanish 



70 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

governor. They had no children, and Belgium 
(the Spanish Netherlands) in 162 1 reverted to 
the Spanish Crown. France gained it by war 
shortly thereafter. In 17 14, the Peace of Rastadt 
gave it to Austria who revived the glories of the 
Burgundian days. Excepting the year 1789, 
when Belgium asserted independence, the Austrian 
overlordship continued until 1794 when the 
French began their control of twenty years. The 
Treaty of London, June 28, 1814, and then the 
Congress of Vienna, June. 7, 1815, united Belgium 
and Holland. 

The Belgian revolution of 1830 separated Bel- 
gium from Holland, and under a very liberal 
Constitution placed Leopold L, of Saxe-Coburg, 
on the throne. His able leadership in planning 
in 1835 the national railroad system and in 
developing the fifty- two canal companies, etc., 
and the leadership of his abler son, Leopold H., 
now continued by that of Albert I., great-nephew 
of Leopold L, has enormously helped to mature 
all the possibilities of Belgium. But its neutrality, 
guaranteed in 1830 by the Great Powers of Europe, 
and unviolated until 19 14, and chiefly the indomi- 
table energy, thrift, and adaptability of its citizens 



BELGIUM 71 



have wrought for it wondrous intensive develop- 
ments. Throughout Belgium's noble history these 
were made more effective by the organized trade 
guilds in each leading city. Through their cease- 
less struggle for self-government such cities and 
their contributory districts at first intermittently 
and then finally obtained it. So it was natural 
to secure for the sum of them all — Belgium — a 
very modern and democratic constitution in 1830 
though it retained a King at its head. And as 
time has since passed the Belgian people have, 
by the use of the ballot, socialized whatever was 
not adequately serving them through private 
initiative. That full democratization is being 
hampered somewhat by the remarkable growth 
of wealth which naturally utilizes the Belgian 
plural voting system as best it can to protect itself. 
But the majority intend to rule in Belgium and 
plural voting seems destined to give way to 
universal suffrage. 

Under plural voting a Belgian may have three 
votes : 

One if twenty-five years of age or more, and a 
resident for at least a year in the same commune. 

One extra vote if married and aged thirty-five 



72 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

years or more, or, if a widower having legitimate 
descendants, provided he pay five francs of direct 
taxation, or proves exemption. Two extra votes 
if he is owner of real estate with a minimum 
cadastral revenue of forty-eight francs, or if he 
has a yearly revenue of one hundred francs or 
more from State stock or savings banks. Two 
extra votes if (i) he holds diplomas of various 
stated descriptions, or (2) if he holds certain 
government posts or public dignities. 

The Senate will doubtless be more democratized 
under the same pressure. The pendulum swung 
the other way fourteen years ago when the councils 
of the nine Provinces were empowered to delegate 
twenty-seven representatives to the Senate who 
were to sit independently of all elections. It 
began its return swing when proportional repre- 
sentation was adopted six years later, in 1899. 
Belgium is divided into a fixed number of electoral 
districts and each has a number of representatives, 
indicated by the percentage of its party in the 
total registration. 

In brief, proportional representation is worked 
as follows : Divide the total number of seats by 
the total number of parties and distribute seats 



BELGIUM 73 



to each party according to the percentage of the 
total vote secured by each party. The smallest 
minority inevitably secures one seat by this 
system. To illustrate: A district in which 40,- 
000 voted, returning seven members, from four 
parties casting, say, 25,000 "Catholic votes," 
8000 "Liberal," 5000 "Socialist," and 2000 
"Catholic Democrats," would produce the follow- 
ing representation: One "Catholic Democrat," 
one "Liberal," one "Socialist," and four "Catho- 
lics." 

But I tear myself away from this delightfully 
interesting country which has wisely superimposed 
virtually all that modern democracy can ask 
and that upon foundations laid by mediasvalism. 
In amusements, sports, legislation, in everything, 
this marvellous little kingdom presents one of the 
world's most thorough triumphs of essential demo- 
cracy. Some of it I could not visit; go you, my 
reader, and do better. Visit the independent 
Duchy of (Belgian) Luxemburg for its beauty of 
country and architectural ruins; Hainault and 
western Namur for their coal mines and their iron 
factories respectively ; remoter and less frequented 
eastern Namur for its friendly welcome of every 



74 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

kind to the leisurely traveller and any and all of 
its cities for their quiet and mellow and unosten- 
tatious interest in every way. Verily, enlightened 
self-interest thriftily applied with diligence in 
the time of peace has turned this comparatively 
and naturally rather poor country into a glow- 
ingly splendid one. And today as I write the 
Belgian is proving against the German invasion 
that neutrality has not enfeebled him. At their 
head is their heroic King and best Servant, that 
noble, intrepid, and manly man and fighter — 
Albert of Belgium. Long may he live to illustrate 
the formal truth that the best Ruler is the chief 
Servant. 



CHAPTER III 
Normandy 



Here on their ocean steeds 
Rode the fierce Northern breeds — 
Scandinavian and Danish; 
Wrought with the Berserk sword, 
Vassal and overlord, 
Stark, fearless and clannish; 

Laid all the coast line low; 
Pierced whence the rivers flow 
Out of Gaul Merovingian; 
Left but to come and gain 
Mid-shore to central plain 
By pact Carlovingian; 

Kept well their plighted word — 
Checked all the Northern herd 
Who would not settle; 
Till, their Duke's kinsfolk gone 
From the French throne, forlorn; 
They showed Capets their mettle. 

Long waged those warrings then 
Till the great Conqueror's men 
Turned, to keep ever, England the Great; 
Thence have their children fought 
Whom and whate'er they ought. 
Careless of fearful odds, conscious of Fate. 
75 



76 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Long may their slogan ring — 

What though they have a King 

He is but one of them pledged to be free — 

Over the years it comes 

Chorused with beat of drums: 

"Right shall decide what World Peace shall be." 



Wednesday Started at From 



To 



Arrived at Running 
at time 



7/28/10 



1.50 Ostend Boulogne 



6.50 



S.oo 



Meals 



Dinner at Impe- 
rial Pavilion Hotel. 
Excellent. 



r y j ly, ,vj ty, ,vj ly. , -^: 




9 , ,t' i»w» "mr?^-W; 



UR faithful "Packard 6" was crossing 
the boundary between Belgium and 
Normandy at our average speed, 
some twenty-five to thirty miles an 
hour, when I closed my chapter on fascinating 
Belgium. Now we came upon one of Napoleon 
First's great national roads. They are macadam, 
and about forty feet wide between their deep 
ditches, on either side of which are grassy surfaces 
of equal extent with the driveway. That would 
allow a regiment to march down the centre with 
its artillery and supply train on either hand. 
The other styles of roads in France are those of the 
1000 or more Arrondissements and of the Com- 
munes which number about 30,000. The Arron- 
dissement roads are macadam, about thirty feet 
wide, and are poorer than the national roads, while 



NORMANDY 77 



the Commune roads are narrow dirt roads little 
cared for. We bowled comfortably along in the 
sunshine, through a dull, almost hillless pastoral 
country, which in general lay in folds whose valleys 
were approximately at right angles to the not 
distant sea-front on the north. At the foot of the 
wider valleys nestled settlements along the sea- 
beach and between the chalk cliffs that the North 
Sea {Anglice the eastern end of the "English 
Channel") has steadily been eating away since 
the world was young. We passed on our right 
hand Dunkirk, in ancient times of smuggling 
fame, and Calais, the last French holding of 
England in France, from whom it was recovered 
in 1558, the time of Queen Mary. (Wasn't 
it that "Bloody" Mary who sadly said: "Its 
name is graven on my heart"?) 

We arrived at Boulogne at 6.50. There the 
"Imperial Pavilion" Hotel afforded us good rooms 
and excellent food. The hotel was on the beach, 
opposite the band-stand, where was a fine military 
concert at 8.30 o'clock. Our rooms overlooked 
the music grounds and we watched the crowd 
gathered around the simple and the beautiful 
streaked sea beyond. In the earlier sunset the 



78 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

blues and reds and pinks of the evening sky lit 
the cliffs behind the hotel, and the quays before 
and beyond it, the green blue water, the glistening 
sands at low tide, and the brown sails of the fishing 
boats were wonderfully beautiful. The bathing 
beach with the usual bath-houses on wheels was 
just before us too. And in front of the hotel a 
very creditable statue of San Martin, Liberator of 
Chile, Peru, and his native Argentine. The man 
was worthy of his statue for his heroic march over 
the Andes near La Paz enabled him not only to 
expel the Spaniards from the three countries 
named, but to demonstrate in his subsequent 
official life that the highest civic virtue could be 
found among the much vilified rulers of the 
Spanish American Republics. Dying in Boulogne, 
his memory survived, but it was not until fifty-nine 
years thereafter that this good equestrian monu- 
ment, designed by M. Allonard, was set up. 

Immediately back of our hotel, a brick wall 
belonging to the defences of the old town sur- 
vives, with its ramparts turned into boulevards. 
I should have mentioned that a mile and a half out- 
side of Boulogne we passed the Column of the 
Grande Armee. It was begun by order by 




The South Front of Amiens Cathedral 



Photo Levy 



NORMANDY 79 



Napoleon I. to commemorate the long encamp- 
ment there of the splendid army of invasion he 
intended for use in England when Villeneuve's 
French fleet should secure control of the English 
Channel by defeating the English fleet under 
Nelson. The reverse experience saved England 
and Europe, too, from being Napoleonized. The 
column is in reality a memorial of failure. In- 
deed, of several failures, for work having been 
suspended on it during the time of Napoleon I. 
it was ordered completed by Louis XVIII. to 
commemorate the return of the Bourbons, but 
they departed again and so did the Orleanists, so 
it was left for Napoleon III. to complete it. 
There it stands, a poor copy of the world's great- 
est memorial column, the Trajan column at 
Rome. 

But to return to Boulogne. After a comfortable 
night we had a really delightful and very simple 
breakfast at our hotel, and then visited the exten- 
sive fish market, where the great fish business 
of the port is transacted. We noted again the 
walls of the old town with its four gates and the 
eight-hundred-years-old chateau in which for a 
time they imprisoned Louis Napoleon after his 



8o MOTORING IN EUROPE 

threat and failure to claim the throne of his 
wonderful uncle. We did not visit the new docks 
along the Liane River, which make Boulogne one 
of the best four ports of France; nor the bathing 
houses; nor the Casino. Of such basins we had 
seen splendid examples in Antwerp and the other 
features were also repetitions to us. So we took 
our departure. 

Thursday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meali 

at metres at time 

7/29/10 11.4s Boulogne Amiens 124 1.05 Lunch at H6- 

" 1.30 Amiens Neufchatel 84 6.50 tel Tgte de 

" 7.50 Neufchatel Dieppe 45 9.00 Boeuf. Din- 

; net at Hotel 

253 7.50 de Grande 

Cerf. Quaint 
and hardl 

We left Boulogne for Amiens at 11.45 and 
arrived there at 1.05. 

Saw the beautiful Cathedral, whose tall and white 
and perfectly proportioned and faultlessly built 
interior with its many small, beautiful columns 
simulated an open and sunlit forest. The right en- 
trance very fine as to its interior, and good without. 
Fine Choir: L'Ange Pleureur tomb at back of it, 

says my old commonplace book. But en avant. We 
started 1.30 for Neufchatel where it seems that at 
seven o'clock four of us dined on a very fine ome- 




The Weeping Angel of the Cathedral of Amiens 



Photo Levy 



NORMANDY 



lette, a native cheese, grapes, and beer, coffee, or 
cider at choice, for a total sum of 7.65 francs. Our 
chauffeur's dinner ! was extra no doubt. The hotel 
was good and clean, and the cooking was done 
behind a screen in the general waiting-room. 

At 7.30 we left for Dieppe which we reached 
by nine o'clock, having taken the longer but more 
level road at Poins. All day long we had enjoyed 
a lovely smooth run. At Dieppe we stopped at 
H6tel Royal, "very good, rather dear" i^our rooms 
overlooked a street and a garden running to the 
sea just beyond. Stumbling into the Casino my 
brother-in-law and I heard a man and a woman 
sing and recite what were evidently some political 
effusions, to judge from the exclusiveness of the 
whole performance, the wording, and the enrap- 
tured little crowd. Part of some political propa- 
ganda, doubtless. Returning to our hotel I relished 

the view over the esplanade and sea which was 
wonderful in charm and colour — green-blue-whitish; 
lights of vessels ; the lighthouse beyond the pier to the 
far right; the pier; and the cliff heights; the lights in 
the old fortress castle, and in the Kursaal and grounds, 
and the glimpse of the bathing facilities before the 
cliffs. 
d 



82 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Saturday Slarled From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals 

at metres at time 

7/30/10 11.30 Dieppe Rouen 56 i.oo Hotel accom- 

3.50 Rouen Trouville 90 7-20 modation. 

Lunch at Grand 

146 5.00 Hotel d'Angle- 

terre. Excellent 
Dinner at Hotel 
Belle Vue. 



This day began by our viewing the bathing. It 
was decorous but otherwise hke that at Ostend. 
Here and wherever bathing-machines are not 
used, the women wear long bathing-robes to and 
from the water's edge. Except that it is staid, 
it reproduces all the phenomena of the typical 
Norman watering-place and shipping-town, and 
over it stands the usual ancient castle erected as a 
protection against the English. After a short, 
pleasant, and successful resistance to an effort 
to charge us more for our accommodations than 
had been agreed upon, we took our leave. ^^Au 
revoir, Messieurs, Mesdames,'' said mine host; 
and ''Merci beaucoup, Bon jour, Bon joiir,'^ 
said we, and were off at 11.30 through the district 
called "Caux" for Rouen, which w^e reached at 
one o'clock, having passed over good and beautiful 
roads lined here and there with fine beech trees. 
Many handsome chateaux stood back in long 
matured grounds, often with spacious front lawns 



NORMANDY 83 



bordered on either side with triple or double 
rows of beech trees. Many such lawns had no 
gate leading into them from the public road. 
Their boundaries were often marked by grassy 
mounds about five feet high and tapering from 
six feet at base to two feet at the top, through 
which grew beech trees some fifty feet high and 
trimmed into a wall hedge. And all along there 
were extensive beech woods. 

Again we came to open country and began to 
have glimpses of the much more level interior. 
Presently the famous wide southward slope began, 
though we were yet running over country undulat- 
ing from east to west. There, in the distance on 
a splendidly isolated site dominating the Seine 
Valley, and Rouen near its mouth, was, I believe 
Chateau Gaillard often besieged and more often 
besung. Morte D' Arthur contains references to 
it in several of its quaint old versions. Chateau 
Gaillard and Castle Domfront to the south-west 
and Falaise, nearer the coast, were built by the 
Normans to hold the land against the French. 
They served well, too, against the English, and in 
the very frequent internal troubles between the 
various members of the ducal family of Normandy. 



84 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Soon we came upon the splendid view of the 
Seine and there on either side of it Rouen; its 
bridge, its islands, its very modern water front, 
its quaintness in streets, houses, and public 
buildings, chiefly churches. Again and again 
the winding and sharp descending road allowed 
glimpses through thick groves of roadside trees of 
the charming view, and then would tantalizingly 
shut it out. In fifteen or twenty minutes we 
crossed a good bridge into Rouen, the interesting 
and ancient capital of Normandy. Even truer 
than the inability of civilized man to live without 
cooks is his need of food. No poetry of view can 
supply that need. We were frankly glad to lunch 
when at one o'clock we reached the Grand Hotel 
d' Angleterre on the new public place running to the 
river. They gave us excellent things, — omelette, 
fried sole, peach-strawberry melba, and a bottle of 
good Beaujolais wine. 

We saw the splendid mediaeval cathedral with 
its two high and well contrasting towers, one 
called the "Tour de Beurre" because built from 
money derived from indulgences to eat butter 
during Lent; then the old and almost round 
Church of St. Maclou of overpowering fioridity 



NORMANDY 85 



of architecture outside, especially about the en- 
trance, but everywhere the decoration is the 
extreme of Gothic style which sinks to prettiness 
in place of retaining its natural and noble grandeur. 
Within, the church is somewhat fussy and extra- 
ordinarily dirty; and oh! the close and foetid 
odours in lovely St. Maclou ! I recalled them when, 
on the steamer coming home some two months 
later, I asked a bright little girl which one of all 
the European churches she had seen she liked 
best. "All churches smell alike to me," was 
her reply. 

From this marvel of a richly decorated church 
we passed to the ancient Gothic Church of St. 
Ouen, delightful within and without. Its win- 
dows are so many and spacious and all ablaze 
with splendid coloured glass that a marvellous 
architectural grace and lightness is the result. 
There was a church here in the sixth century in 
connection with the Abbey of St. Ouen, and upon 
its ruins began to appear early in the fourteenth 
century the present building which was com- 
pleted in some two hundred years. The recent 
"restorations" are indifferent; but, says my 
commonplace book, 



86 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

all the rest of the interior is wonderful, especially the 
side entrance showing the Assumption and Death of 
the Virgin, six apostles, and the figure of Bishop St. 
Ouen — a splendid and satisfying expression in stone 
of reverential worship. Glass good and old. 

We visited the old market-place and saw the 
stone bearing the sorrowful statement that there 
on May 30, 143 1, Joan of Arc was burned by the 
English under Russell, Duke of Bedford. We 
then went to the bright and typically new, stone- 
flagged, tree-shaded, open-air produce market- 
place where we bought some luscious grapes and 
apricots. Then to the fine old Gothic Palais de 
Justice in process of restoration. We visited the 
ancient, simple, and strong Protestant Chapel 
of St. Eloi, because there, in 1680 odd, were 
married two Huguenot progenitors, named 
Desmeisniers, of one of our party. Upon the 
revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes, they 
went to the Low Countries (Holland, presumably), 
and thence to Dublin, Ireland, where two of the 
subsequent family served as Lord Mayor. We 
wandered about the narrow, crooked streets 
which extend everywhere except along the river 
front, and among the old carved timber and 




■^^**«l^-iB^;i— *^-**'^ * 




^^X^l Mt$^^:,W^^^xAmfii>^CMlyr ssS5B,-^pM| 




""^ 



Photo Mansell 



The Protestant Church of St. Eloi at Rouen 



NORMANDY 87 



overhanging houses. Numerous ancient Norman 
dwellings, and other buildings, as, for example, 
the ancient Clock Tower, still remain, but the 
inhabitants are French, French, French. This 
is true of every large settlement in Normandy, 
because all such settlements are easily accessible. 
Only in remote corners are the traces of old 
Normandy to be found in the more primitive 
looks, manners, and possessions of the inhabitants. 
Indeed the popular English belief that in the lapse 
of nearly nine centuries the Norman of to-day 
has changed but little from his ancestors who 
conquered England in 1066, seems to me to have 
little basis in fact. About all there is to it is that 
Normandy is yet principally a grazing country 
with all that that implies and that the men folk 
shave their faces. 

We left Rouen with great regret. Crossing 
Pont Boie le Dieu, and then via Rue St. Sever, 
we came to Rue de Cain which led us to the road 
for Trouville. As we rose above the town the 
backward view again entranced us, as also the 
view before us across the Seine, as we traversed 
the hilly road bordered with hedges of haw- 
thorns, or stone or brick walls covered with ferns 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



or iris. We ran through apple orchards, where 
tree trunks were wound with crimson ramblers. 
About 6.55 we came to historic Honfleur opposite 
Harfleur and south-east of Havre at the mouth of 
the Seine. At 7.20 we reached Trouville and 
secured at the Belle Vue excellent rooms giving on 
a balcony which flew the "Stars and Stripes," 
and overlooking the public square. No bathroom 
was obtainable. The dinner was good and would 
be served either in a gravelly garden or in the 
hotel. We chose the former. All was well 
except a bottle of "Beaune." Wine and, for 
that matter, the vaunted cider, is apt to be 
wretched in Normandy and even worse in Brittany. 
Sunday, 7/31/ 10. Very early in the morning 
the fruit, vegetable, household supply, curio and 
knickknack market proceeded to develop itself 
before the hotel. First iron supports were set up 
in the stone flags. These rods were covered with 
canvas beneath which on wooden forms supplies 
brought in from the country were spread out. Here 
we bought grapes which we consumed at breakfast. 
Later, we inspected the pier and its surroundings. 
The great glistening beach exposed by the low 
tide was lively with parties gathering shrimps 



NORMANDY 



from little pools or with playing bands of boys or 
men and women. There in the distance over the 
green and dancing, sunlit waters went steamers 
and sail-boats. For the rest Trouville presented 
along shore the typical French seaside effects, 
for it was not in social season. Back of it are 
many very lovely villas. The season was to 
begin in precisely so many days. Then high, 
and wealthy French society life would horserace 
and aviate, play golf and tennis, gamble on the 
green and gambol on the beach, — splendid beach, 
the best in France, — and disport itself in the most 
beautiful clothes, equipages, etc., and of course, 
pay for the pleasure accordingly. The season 
at Deauville, immediately across the narrow river 
Touges, whose tidal rise is some fifteen feet, is 
part of all this. As "we" were returning from 
our walk, "we" crossed by the "dry" ferry 
between Deauville and Trouville. It was simply 
a walk-way then, whereas during high tide it 
consists of a ferry-boat pulled along a rope 
stretched from side to side of the stream. After 
a poor but cleanly served luncheon, we motored 
in a drizzily rain to Pont I'Eveque and back by 
St. Galtan. Roads good. Then a fair table 



90 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

d'hote, and "we" walked in the clear evening 
air along the beach walk and to the pier head 
whence we saw seven lighthouse lights at work, 
and Havre lit up; and in the other direction, 
towards Villers, the lights of two little settlements 
at the mouth of their valleys, and — was that 
Dives-sur-Mer? Turning hotel ward we had to use 
the wet ferry; we happened to glance seaward 
across the harbour front. Boats that had been 
stranded on their keels or sides by the tidal drop 
were beginning to feel the returning water, and 
their yellow lantern lights were glowing; and here 
and there sailors were at work tarring their boat 
hulls. 

Monday, August i, 1910. Got money and 
mail from our bankers the Credit Lyonnais 
and a notice that for lack of sufficient postage 
the local post office was holding a letter for me. 
Now why had not our bankers paid that overdue 
postage? Our mail had been forwarded to their 
care and we held letters of credit on them. Having 
read our letter mail and glanced over our home 
papers, "we" motored to the old "Inn of William 
the Conqueror" at Dives for luncheon. Its 
gateway is flush with its fagade and leacfs into 




> 

p, 

'fi 

■3 

o 

"o 

d 

o 
O 



G 

o 
O 



NORMANDY 91 



the large courtyard around which it is built. The 
Inn is embellished unconvincingly. There in front 
of us sat our late acquaintance Mr. Hopkinson 
Smith, painting "a pot boiler," representing a 
certain view of the courtyard. He painted many 
pictures hereabouts every summer. Presently 
his wife looked us up and while kindly showing 
us the various highly decorated public rooms of the 
Inn made us known to Monsieur Pol, the proprie- 
tor. While viewing his kitchen at one side of the 
courtyard, "we," Mrs. Smith, and Monsieur Pol, 
held a consultation as to an especially fine luncheon. 
Some dishes mentioned "we" and Mrs. Smith 
disapproved of, but they put in an appearance so 
that a gourmand might have been pleased as well 
as a gourmet. My French is too indifferent ! We 
were served delicious cold mussels, and mussels 
with cream sauce ; tomatoes sliced with onions and 
cucumber, with French dressing; an omelette; 
lobster with tomato sauce, d la maison; the 
specialty of the Inn, poulet validos, tomato 
farcis; and fried potatoes; peche Flammaise; 
and cafe noir, — all excellently cooked. And we 
found a very fine bottle of Chateau Moncontour 
Vouvray, 1893. Then we inspected the old 



92 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

church at Dives whose walls are embellished with 
the names of the Conqueror's chief companions 
in his invasion of England. Among them was 
the name of an ancestor of one of our party. 
Tradition has it that the intending chieftains of 
the English invasion had religious service here 
as they intended to embark from Dives. Their 
point of sailing became, however, on account of 
more favouring wind, St. Valery-sur-Somme. 
Returning to Trouville "we" passed a pleasant 
evening strolling about the sea front and soon 
retired to be prepared for an early start in the 
morning for Caen, Bayeux, St. Lo and Avranches, 
on the western border of Normandy. 

Date Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

8/2/10 11.00 A.M. Trouville Caen 50 1. 00 P.M. Blow out at 

3. IS P.M. Caen Bayeux 24 4.05 P.M. 12 M. First one 

" 4.4s P.M. Bayeux Avranches 87 7. OS p.m. on trip. Though 

we had a flat 

161 5.10 tire when ma- 

chine was taken 
from the Vader- 
land, and an- 
other at Brus- 
sels. Lunch at 
Hotel d' Angle- 
terre. Caen. 
Dinner at Hdtel 
France et Lon- 
dres r 6 u n i s, 
Avranches. Ex- 
cellent. 

Just before breakfast our companions — "they" 
— informed us that a cable telling of the impending 



NORMANDY 93 



marriage of a close friend in London in two or 
three days called them thither, but that they would 
rejoin us speedily. Meanwhile would we motor 
westward? So "we" started on the above itiner- 
ary at eleven after most regretfully parting with 
"them" who were to take that night's channel 
steamer at Havre. We ran along a road now 
commanding the sunlit sea and now shut in by 
charming hedges, through a grazing country dotted 
with red- tiled old cottages to Villers, and then 
past several estates surrounded by high stone 
walls. We were about to enter Caen when there 
occurred our first blow-out and that in a sudden 
rain squall. Before long we were going again 
and we arrived in Caen which was gay with bunt- 
ing and visitors in honour of an expected Aviation 
Meet. Squads of soldiers were marching to the 
field to protect the public. 

Lunching at Hotel d'Angleterre we encountered 
a friend and his sister. The former accompanied 
us to the curious old Church of St. Pierre and to 
the Churches of La Trinite and St. Etienne. La 
Trinite is the Church of the Convent founded by 
Matilda, wife and first cousin of William the 
Conqueror, at the same time that he founded 



94 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

St. Etienne in similar expiation for their having 
married one another though, in the opinion of the 
Church, of too close blood kinship, and who shall 
say that the Church was wrong. My note-book 
is good enough to remark: 

La Trinite is over-ornate but successful. The effect 
of light at the back of the choir is wonderful and as if 
emanating from within. St. Etienne most highly 
ornate. These two churches have broad walks behind 
the clerestory. Towers in all cases rather negligible. 
Hotel Dieu now takes place of the Abbaye for Women 
formerly connected with La Trinite; and the Abbaye 
formerly connected with St. Etienne is now used as 
a government receptacle for poles, etc., for build- 
ing, and for disjecta membra of the former Abbaye's 
interior. 

Taking our kind friends back to their hotel 
(d'Angleterre) we started at 3.15 for Bayeux. 
Our route was over one of the fine national roads, 
typically straight, though often that characteristic 
is not apparent because of undulations of the 
ground or growths of trees. We overlooked a 
grazing country. And here and there were the 
typical red-tiled, timbered Norman cottages, 
picketed horses eating half-moons into lush clover, 



NORMANDY 95 



and numerous cows, and magpies. Trees, or 
earth mounds or bushes defined the margins of 
the road. Thus we sped along and at 4.05 entered 
quiet, retired, and interesting Bayeux. Here 
we saw in the Library a typical collection of 
ancient MSS. and books, and the wondrous 
Bayeux tapestry. In Normandy something at 
least of three things is found in each leading 
old town — an ancient fortress, the church founded 
by the fortress builders, and much of the church's 
library saved by dint of special devotion of the 
monks through all the frequent and terrible 
vicissitudes of centuries. The chief treasure 
of Bayeux's library, the "Bayeux tapestry," 
we nearly missed seeing, for we arrived when the 
schedule called for closed doors. But my supplica- 
tions in piteous French, and my wife's perfect and 
fluent appeal in that tongue, and the silent elo- 
quence of the large pourboire I tendered as tactfully 
as I could gained us entrance to the library, where 
was the famous "tapesty" on a linen base. It is 
framed and glazed on both sides and elevated some 
four and a half feet in a long ellipse, thus being 
conveniently accessible to view throughout its 
length and breadth (230 feet by 20 inches). In 



96 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

four colours of worsted — drabs, russets, greens, 
and blues, yet freshly bright — the story is woven in 
— the story of Edward the Confessor, of Harold, his 
delegate to Normandy, afterwards slain as King 
of England at the battle of Hastings, of William 
the Conqueror's flotilla for the English invasion, 
of the battle of Hastings, of Harold's death and 
the events following it. The Conqueror's Queen 
Matilda is said to have designed it and begun 
it about 1062, and together with her ladies to 
have wrought it. The Church has preserved 
it. It is a world wonder among historical docu- 
ments. 

We next visited the fussy and curious cathe- 
dral which was built by Bishop Odo, half-brother, 
on the mother's side, of the Conqueror. It is 
constructed in four elevations; it has very small 
windows in the nave; and its crypt is a fine 
specimen of Norman architecture. Throughout 
it, as in all the oldest churches of Normandy, 
the simple and powerful Norman arch and 
short massive pillars are employed. Much of 
the higher raised work in this church is of poor 
restoration. 

But we had to hasten on to our night stoppage, 



NORMANDY 97 



Avranches. Leaving Bayeux at 445 we passed 
through the old town of picturesquely situated 
St. Lo which has a handsome church, a notable 
public square from which the roadway winds 
downward sharply and crookedly to the new town. 
Nearby is one of the famous French " Stud Farms." 
We wanted to carefully inspect St. Lo, but "far 
in the distance the white road glistened" and 
called us to Avranches and its wondrous view, 
at sunset, of the Bay of Cancale and its jewel 
Mont St. Michel. So we departed not only from 
the attractions of St. Lo itself but also from 
the district called Cotentin. Now the Cotentin 
is the peninsula north of St. Lo, on whose northern 
middle is Cherbourg. It is naturally Norman of 
the Normans, for is it not the ancient cornering 
place of that race, and have not its granite walls 
kept it little bitten by the sea into the numerous 
bights which have elsewhere along the French 
channel coast invited alien settlers? In the far 
nooks and corners of a country are naturally 
preserved much of its ancientness. The Picts 
sought Northern Scotland and Wales; the Nor- 
mans, the Cotentin; the Basques, north-western 

Spain; the Celtic Britons, Cornwall in England, 
7 



98 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

and Brittany in France; and the Mexican Indians, 
mountainous north-western Mexico, and so on. 
What revolutionary outbreaks shall come from 
such national refuges none may safely prophesy. 
Like a red thread traversing some white woven 
cloth they direct attention and arouse the eager 
fancy to dreams of olden days. Here then in 
the Cotentin the traveller should linger and explore 
the many splendid and romantic architectural 
ruins and all the hundreds of historic sites; the 
ancient farmhouses and the typical ways and 
mea.ns, preserved from olden times, for negotiating 
life. 

Alas! but also well, to none is granted the 
opportunity to enjoy everything. We had to pur- 
sue our way to our sunset tryst. We sped through 
Villebaudon, Percy, Villedieu, and soon were 
breasting the steep ascent to the somewhat cone 
like Avranches which keeps watch and ward very 
near the western border of Normandy. At 7.05 
we approached the courtyard of the Hotel ' ' France 
et Londre reunis." Four waiters in long white 
aprons sprang upon the car and sought us for 
their respective hotels. What! barkers! as on 
old Harrison Street, Baltimore, or Shoreditch, 



NORMANDY 99 



London, or before the hotels at Kew? We 
"followed Baedeker" into this "re-united" hotel. 
Did that name indicate a statesmanlike seeking 
of co-operation in the midst of cut-throat opposi- 
tion? What were the terms of the alliance? 
Was this placid and subdued and rotund "Mon- 
sieur," the landlord, but the amiable consort of 
that vigorous "Madame," the landlady there, 
whose personality seemed to suggest that she 
was the reigning sovereign who had conqtiered 
peace in at least a portion of this hotel-distracted 
little corner of the world? So we went conjectur- 
ing into the old-time candle-lit apartment she 
assigned us. And then the rain fell, and though 
there was some pink in the higher sky we could not 
view at sunset distant Mont St. Michel. Instead 
there came the prosaic comfort of fresh mackerel; 
Haricotverts, Camembert, and a good and light 
Avranches beer for dinner. As we ate at a little 
side table the hotel family and some chosen 
guests dined at the long table near us. "Monsieur 
the landlord," under the keen guidance of "Ma- 
dame, the landlady," frequently himself or 
through the waiters or waiting maids, attended to 
our wants, and then at dessert time kept tempting 



loo MOTORING IN EUROPE 

us with cake, wine, sparkling cider, fresh almonds, 
etc. Verily we must have been assisting at a 
family f^te without knowing it. After as gracious 
expressions as we could give for undefined kindli- 
ness from this little hotel family which seemed 
almost lost in their big hotel, we withdrew to a 
large cold sitting-room much swept and waxed 
as to floor and much though simply garnished. 
It was one of the few rooms answering to the 
English or American public sitting-room kept 
free from smoking and drinking and games of 
men, which I have ever come across in really pro- 
vincial France. Here "we" planned for a morn- 
ing view of Mont St. Michel and I brought my 
commonplace book up to date, I find, with these 
words, "Wishing our comrades — "they" — were 
with us instead of on the channel between Havre 
and Dover." I concluded the entry with the 
record that 

our one hundred and six miles' run today was delight- 
ful and brisk, and afforded many fine broad valley 
views. Drizzling tonight. No walk; but no dust 
tomorrow. My wife who has just been presented 
with four roses by " Monsieur, the Landlord" is finish- 
ing a letter to her dear home-folk. Done; and so 
good-night from us two. 



NORMANDY loi 



Date Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

Wednesday ll.oo Avranches St. Michel 30 1. 30 Lunch at Hotel 

Aug. 3, 1910 3.30 St. Michel Dinard 69 5.30 Poulard Ain6. 

— Good. Blow- 

99 4'30 out No. 2 at 

5.15. Patched 
it. H6tel Royal. 
Restaurant very 
good. Table d' 
hole very poor. 
A good costly 
hotel wherein 
are many 

"bounders. " 

And now, says my commonplace book, 

Cafe complet at 9.45 on first floor porch after a 
delightful night's rest. Sunshine and balmy air. 
Baggage descende as we had coffee. My wife carried 
the three pink and the one white rose Monsieur le 
Maitre d' Hotel had asked permission to present to 
her. Canaries and finches singing in cages near us 
in mixed assemblies. My wife reading of our route to- 
day, — Pont Orson, Mont St. Michel where we propose 
lunching, and Dinard. But first, after cafe, we shall 
see the Church here and the Jardin des Plantes and 
take from it as a base the distant view over land and 
sea to Mont St. Michel. The church is modern, in 
good, strong Gothic style highly exploited. Evidently 
rich folk have done the good deed. Across the 
broad plaza on which it faces is the Jardin des Plantes 
containing the small old Roman Arch beneath 
which "we" walked and saw in front of us over 
the land and over the tide-freed sands, Mont St. 
Michel the wonderful; and to the landward, L'lle 
Tomblaine. 



102 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

At high tide Mont St. Michel seems to float on 
the water. Far away the principal charm was its 
mysterious attraction as a place of ancient and 
present worship. For the rest we saw it as a 
pyramid glistening in the sun, upon the glisten- 
ing sands. But the time had come to start unless 
we should stop to see the column here com- 
memorating the barefoot penance of Henry II. 
of England before the old Church destroyed in 
1 192, to expiate the murder of Thomas a Becket. 
This we omitted, and at eleven o'clock started 
for the "Mont," down a steep road, crooked as a 
long series of capital M's. Indeed, the road is 
called "le chemin M." 

Our route lay through banks crowded with 
shrubs and small trees or with flowering plants 
and tall trimmed trees and brought us to Pont 
Orson on the River Couesnon which separates 
Normandy and Brittany. A typical country 
market was being held. It was especially rich in 
pigs, and here in a bag, held by a hind leg, I saw 
moving the oft-mentioned "pig in a poke." Turn- 
ing abruptly to the right we ran a few miles and 
then came to the long causeway leading across 
the sands or water, as the tide determines, to 



NORMANDY 103 



wondrous Mont St. Michel. At its end rose the 
basic and fortified wahs above which chmbed 
pyramidally the village dwellings, including the 
Poulard Inns (at the older of which "we" were to 
lunch, principally on their famous omelette), the 
eight-hundred-year-old Monastery and its great 
refectory largely hewn from the rock, and at the 
peak, the Church over which in modern times has 
been erected a metallic spire surmounted by a 
figure of St. Michael. Was the less beautiful 
old shape of it all preferable or is that lineally 
perfect spire an improvement? 

That reminds me of the objection of the Art 
Committee to a Rodin sketch of a too wondrously 
muscled horse. The Committee referred the 
matter to the manager of one of the great French 
slow-draft horse-breeding establishments. He 
said: "It is true that no such horse has ever 
existed. Nevertheless that is precisely the horse 
I am endeavouring to produce." It is useless to 
attempt further to describe this most beautiful, 
architecturally perfected island. Dream it out; 
or better still, go and see it. Or if that is impracti- 
cable, inspect St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, 
England, which was its rude but beautiful off- 



104 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

spring. We saw its dungeons and its village 
of ancient mould, but the enchantment lay in 
the long, long view over the sands, here grey, 
there wet, reflecting the clouds; landwards the 
green meadows with grazing sheep, seaward blue 
water and the distant lies Causey, Cancale, the 
headland towards Granville and Avranches, and 
the land swing east of it. Above, the sky was 
tender blue with white fleecy clouds. The wind 
was soft. Sunshine and rain alternated. We 
wanted to wait and see the high foam-fronted tide 
rush in and hear its hissing roar. Alas, we had to 
leave in time to get housed at popular Dinard 
before nightfall. So we were off at 3.30, and soon 
we crossed the Couesnon River and left Normandy 
behind us. 

What picture have I in my mind of its five 
departments, La Manche, Calvados, Eure, and 
Seine Inferieure which constitute about the middle 
third of the French channel coast with Orne, the 
other department, a little west of south of that 
channel tier? Speaking very generally, it forms 
a rough parallelogram with its east and west 
extension nearly twice as long as that running 
north and south. Generally speaking, too, it com- 



NORMANDY 105 



prises the high land between the great northern 
French plain and the sea. And when Charles 
the Simple ("simple" meaning straightforward) 
granted Normandy to Rollo and his Northmen 
as guardsmen against other and less amenable 
invaders, he evidently defined its limits on the 
west by the clear demarcation of the peninsiila 
now constituting La Manche and extended it 
through the mouth of the Seine Valley. A buffer 
state was needed by France and demanded by the 
Norman guardsmen as a strategic position. And 
so it was. Here then with the daughter of Charles 
as his wife (unfortunately she did not bear 
Rollo an heir), and with Rouen as the capital 
city of Normandy, Rollo and his Northmen settled 
in 912. Strong and masterful were all his descend- 
ant Dukes of Normandy, but none of them his 
equal until came his great grandson who in 1066 
became the Conqueror of England. There was 
Rollo, the Great; Williami Longsword, the Wise; 
Richard, the Fearless; Robert, the Devil, and 
William the Conqueror; except William Long- 
sword none of them was born in wedlock, though 
the parents of all of them save those of William 
the Conqueror were subsequently married. Under 



io6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

their Dukedoms strong men were given lands and 
lordships if they would build protecting castles 
at designated points and duly serve their Duke in 
time of war and peace. The Church was duly 
placated. As we have seen fortress, castle, 
abbey, and church rose together at all great 
centres, while around them gathered, for spiritual 
and bodily protection, the common folk who 
developed city trading around the open space 
used as a market or for pleasure. The belfry 
was hung with a pet bell perhaps as is "Rouvel" 
in its street-pierced tower at Rouen, which still 
rings curfew at 8.45 each evening, or like its 
fellows in other towns, yet ready to call to civic 
festival, or to war or peace. Later came the 
Palais de Justice, and latest of all the Museum. 
A "rich grazing country indeed," says my common- 
place book 

is western and north-western Normandy. Heavy 
its storms in winter and sweet its springs with blos- 
soming of apple and cherry trees, with wild flow- 
ers and the foliage of beech and poplar and lime, 
and the budding of j^ellow gorse and white and 
purple heather in the far western uplands; and 
except in heavy winter weather its skies are bright 
and blue. 



NORMANDY 107 



Over such a country, preserved to his use by 
feudal lords whom in his early manhood he had 
brought to uniform subjection and whose castle 
strongholds thickly dotted all his duchy, ruled 
the Great William. But though "his Norman 
sheep were fat, the English sheep were fatter; 
and so it seemed the meeter, that he should take 
the latter." The conquest of England occurred 
in 1066. The force of Norman rulers began to 
wane amidst the greater luxuries of England, and 
Normandy drained of her greatest leaders declined 
in independence, for the Conqueror's son and 
heir, Robert, was both spasmodic and dissipated. 
For nearly four hundred years England and 
France sought to annex Normandy, until in 1450 
it finally fell to France. Since then the over- 
shadowing influence of her southern neighbour, 
so quick always to absorb the world's new thought, 
has been drawing her towards modern civilization. 
Slowly the old Normandy of the Normans has 
retreated. Her ancient customs and costumes 
have very largely disappeared, though the coarse 
blue linen clothes are yet in use for her men, and 
a white cap for the women. Only Norman thrift 
and trading, perseverance, and love for its thin 



io8 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

hard cider, and such ingrained characteristics and, 
in its less accessible parts, house furnishings and 
domestic ways, are left to illustrate the Normandy 
of the ancient times, while in its easily accessible 
cities non-Norman France prevails and the world's 
tourists have subjected to their use very many 
of its numerous seaside villages. Much of the 
Seine Valley and of southern portions of Normandy 
and of its peninsula, La Manche, we did not see. 
That remains for another trip. 



CHAPTER IV 
Brittany 

You who have Celtic blood in your veins or who love 

The fire of their living — the warmth of their love or the chill of 

their wrath — 
Tell over with me in careful imagining how the fierce Franks 
Beat them back to the uttermost hmits of what was their ancient 

Empire 
Till to-day the Walloon, the Breton, the Gaels, and the stout men 

of Cornwall in England 
Must speak for the vanished and separate nations that once 

constituted them. 
Eclipsed is their national power. But brightly their national 

characteristics persist 
Though modified greatly by climate and more by their methods of 

life. 
Note the Walloon. What a cheery and diligent fellow at work 

or at sanctimonious beggarship 
In his equable climate and country! Note the deep Breton all 

silent through pressure 
Of life in his sea-girt peninsula home where the wild ocean winds 
Lash his land, or drive frantic waves to beat all in vain on his 

stark granite coast, 
Or lure to their death so many who fish oflF the coast of far, foggy 

Iceland in Spring! 
Note the voluble Irishman given to roam o'er the fertile and fair 

Emerald Isle, 
Whose easier life never forced him from home into strenuous work 
Until a few generations ago. Note the Scotch and the Welsh 

Highlandmen 
As they wander abroad or dwell midst their own storied hills. 

109 



no MOTORING IN EUROPE 

And note the Cornishman, rugged and stubborn and moody and 

burly as his own iron-bound coast, 
Which is smitten so often by terrible gales from the maddened 

Atlantic. 
But full in the innermost core of the heart-life of each of them 
Beats the call of religion, and in the brains of them all the white 

soul of fancy, 
That communes with the spirits of fairyland, be they of heaven or 

earth 
And evokes songs from land, sea, or sky, or brings beautiful 

miracles down 
From that heaven which the same for us all seems so different to 

each. 
Far have the centuries flung you, O ancient septs of the once 

mighty Celts, 
And differing your speech of to-day ; but your fancy and fighting 
And poetry still remain one. Often like threads of bright scarlet 
Drawn full through the length of a spotless white weaving of linen 
Your fancy gleams forth in some passionate story, or fray, or 

heart-moving verse, 
Or the chill wrath in you forces such dour and terrible battling 
As your courage compels when fanned hot by the zeal that religion 

imparts. 

NTO Brittany we dashed, upon cross- 
ing the Couesnon River after our de- 
parture from Mont St. Michel with 
its battlements, its monastery, its 
pinnacled abbey, and its dominating church, the 
new steeple all alight in the westering sun, its 
dark base picked out in white by the foam-fiecked 
waves of the inrushing tide, and Port Orson old, 
but developing rapidly under tourist influences. 




BRITTANY in 



Dinard — the modern, high-pressure, and very 
dressed-up, Frenchy, not Bretonish, summer 
resort — we were scheduled to reach in time 
for a formal dinner among Parisian gowns of 
women and black coats of men! However, I 
have been spoiled, for certainly the ease one 
enjoys at the inns of Northern France, reached 
with an agreeable automobile party, is unsur- 
passable. 

But to resume. We started from Mont St. 
Michel at 3.30 and after Pont Orson passed 
through Dol, Dinan (which we saved to visit 
with "them" when they returned from England), 
and ran through country which gradually became 
more country-like, rude, and romantic, and 
came at 5.15 within, say, five miles of Dinard, 
where our second blow-out occurred. Patching 
until we could buy new tires on the morrow we 
were passed by five scorching autos and two 
moderate ones. Dinard was evidently well into 
its season. Bicyclists passed us frequently. Soon 
we ran into Dinard and secured accommodations 
at the Hotel Royal, whose restaurant is very 
good, table d'hote ordinary in every sense, and 
among whose patrons were some especially nice 



112 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



people but many others who apparently were 
vulgar money spenders. 

Thursday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

8/4/10 3.20 Dinard Cape Fr6hel 4S 4-50 Lunch and din- 

" 5.00 Cape Frdhel Dinard 45 6.20 ner at H6tel 



The extra charges of this hotel are wondrous 
high. But the Eastern or native or more Uvely 
music played by its famous Hungarian band 
was delightful when not too boisterous. And 
the view from the hotel's front over the bay and 
the bathing-beach with its bathing estabHshments, 
machines, and bathers between the two garden 
and villa-covered capes framing it in, is delightful 
always, and in the early morning sunrise when the 
tide was beginning to swing in again, was altogether 
lovely. Says my faithful commonplace book: 

At low water some fifty separate rock ledges can 
be seen stretching here and there out seaward, and 
St. Male and St. Servan just across the Ranee River. 
Sails and boats, some white, some brown, dot the 
waters, green, blue, and whitish-blue gleaming 
beyond the yellow sand far out beyond the brown 
beach with its splotches of wet seaweed. IMen are 
forking the seaweed into carts. A man and a horse 



BRITTANY 113 



are pulling bath-houses to and from the water's 
margin, children are at play on the beach, two men 
are fencing on the terrace in front of the hotel. 

There is little bathing. The cliff walk is very 
agreeable and offers wonderful views over land 
and sea. Towards the Point de la Compte to 
the south, that is, towards Dinan, the sands at low 
tide are covered with bright green seaweed. Has 
its emerald green colour suggested the name of this 
coast — the Emerald Coast? Certainly the view 
" Comptewards " is verily emerald green with its 
green seaweed stretches, green shore, green boats, 
and, far beyond, the green channel waters. 

Poor lunch at hotel. And at 3.20 went in the 
machine through St. Brieuc and St. Lunaire to 
a beautiful wild country about Ploubalay and 
Matignon to Cape Frehel Lighthouse, surrounded 
by moors covered with yellow gorse and low 
purple heather, and frowning at a wild waste of 
channel water in which beyond eyesight lay the 
Channel Islands. Back to ordinary table d'hote 
at hotel, and after listening for a time to some 
thunderous music by the Hungarian band, to 
our apartment whence the view over the bay 
with its shore lights was lovely indeed. 



114 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Friday, August 5, 19 10. Now luck was with 
me on this Friday. 

But aren't we all the chief creators of what we 
call our "luck"? I made this particular bit of 
mine by looking out of a window over the bay of 
Dinard upon waking just before daybreak. The 
tide was out. The sand stretched away and 
away between the lamplit peninsulas defining it 
to right and left; dozens of sharp, rough ledges 
and great areas of seaweed broke its dark grey 
surface, while over sands and land and distant 
sea-line the mists of morning cast their enchant- 
ment. As I gazed, the dim horizon lightened 
seaward. Sky and sea merged into each other. 
The sun was struggling to arise. The further light 
grew lighter. Then at the sea edge appeared 
a whitish line — the foam of the advancing waves. 
The low horizon blazed into yellowish-white 
changing to red as the sun's rim swum above it. 
The clouds above which had run the gamut in 
delicate colouring turned to that most trumpet- 
like call of colour, a true, deep, living pink. Back 
of them the wide sky was of tender blue. Up swung 
the great red sun; on came the leaping white- 
pointed channel tide into our land-locked bay, 



BRITTANY 115 



glinting and carousing, sliding over brown rock- 
ledge and glistening sands, and saving stretches 
of emerald green seaweed from the men and 
carts who would gather it for their farms, until 
the foam-fronted tide had murmured its way up 
to high-water mark and all the beautiful bay had 
yielded to the sea again. The blues and pinks 
and yellows that the early dawn of day had painted 
on the flooding tide as upon their overarching 
sky gave place upon the dancing waters to limpid 
channel green and glinting golden sunshine and 
white lights from clouds above and sands below, 
while the heavens above were blue, with here and 
there a fleecy cloud. I know that only a painter 
or a poet should dare to describe such a glory of 
colour, but having seen it once I attempted to 
fasten it forever in my memory. Formal Dinard 
did not gratify my taste; but the passing of the 
evening and the coming of the morning over its 
lovely bay were to me more gratifying than I 
can express. 

We explored Dinard's pleasant walks by sea and 
shore, and in shops and gardens ; had an indifferent 
table d'hote luncheon, and afterwards listened to 
the Hungarian band play very pleasingly from 



ii6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Tosca and Mireille and then with great verve, 
but no understanding, many American selections. 
"We" received a telegram from "them" that they 
would on Sunday morning reach the seaport 
St. Malo just across our bay and the River Ranee. 
Telegraphing that "we" would go to Morlaix 
whence the car would return for "them," we left 
the hotel at 4.15. I wish I had a kodak picture 
of the retinue of servants who saw us off. The 
three men and a boy who had carried downstairs 
my wife's dressing-case, hat-box, and small 
automobile trunk, and my suit case, stood with 
the waiter, three boys, and the porter to receive 
pourhoires. To most of the throng I had given 
liberal pourhoires for services upon arrival or 
during our stay, but again I "remembered" 
them. Tip collecting can be pushed so far as to 
be a disgusting performance. 

Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 
metres at time marks 

109 7.30 3.IS Lunch at Hfitel 

Royal, Dinard. 
Good dinner 
at H6tel d' 
Angleterre, St. 
Brieuc, 

We ran through St. Lunaire, apparently a 
mushroom summer resort village affording beauti- 



Friday 


Started Prom 
at 


To 


Aug. S. 1916 


4. IS Dinard 


St. Brieuc 



-■> '^" '''», Xl^^i 







BRITTANY 117 



ful views over the dancing green channel water, 
and through St. Brieuc with s'milar outlook and 
a golf course, through Ploubalay, Matignon, 
Plurien in the uplands near the coast, and then 
dipped down to Urguy, a vigorous little village on 
the water and offering with its new built hotel and 
simplicity a lovely though very retired bathing 
resort. We passed to the uplands again and ran 
through the villages of Plened, La Poirier, Plan- 
quenne, St. Rene, and Villinel into ancient St. 
Brieuc (population 24,000, now capital of the 
C6tes-du-Nord Department) at 7.30, where at 
Hotel d'Angleterre we got an excellent "French" 
table d'hote dinner, and the last bedroom in the 
house. We took a walk to see some of its many 
quaint old buildings and slept well, after noting 
that a starry night was closing a sunny, beautiful 
day. 

Saturday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

at metres at time marks 

Aug. 6, 1910 10.00 St. Brieuc Morlaix 83 12.15 Ordinary lunch 

3.4s Morlaix St. Brieuc 83 5.00 at Hotel de 

r Europe. Fair 

166 4.30 dinner at 

H6tel de Bre- 
tagne. 

After early coffee we motored to Place de la 
Prefecture, where in a typical market gathering, 



ii8 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

women wearing the white Hnen caps pecuHar to 
this department, C6tes-du-Nord, were huckstering. 
Those who had come to buy or sell in a small 
way stowed their supplies in large, close-woven 
baskets swung on their arms from two curved 
handles playing on swivels. In more than one 
basket I saw a large live hen or rooster. 

Soon we started for Morlaix, some fifty miles 
away, over a fine national road which was almost 
straight, and which as it ran over very hilly country 
(in the mountains of Arree) afforded splendid 
panoramic views, including our white ribbon of a 
road perhaps for ten miles ahead. Along the road 
were numerous churches in all stages of antiquity, 
decay, and beauty. Indeed, the simple faith of 
the Breton people throughout their thousand 
years of ardent Christianity has led them to erect 
hundreds of churches and chapels and to entrust 
them to the safekeeping of the various saints. 
These edifices are left piously undisturbed by 
builders. The smaller chapels have usually 
been built halfway under ground and are on 
almost any kind of site. A hillside offering a good 
support for a niche protecting the image of the 
saint, and proffering a spring whose waters can be 



BRITTANY 119 



led into a stone basin in which pilgrims are to 
drink after praying to the saint, is a favourite 
location. But wherever they have been placed 
they are expected to stay virtually untouched 
until only the holy ground on which they stand 
remains to attract worshippers. 

Innumerable pilgrimages — ' ' Pardons, " — em- 
bracing marching to the Church and then proces- 
sions from it led by the image of the saint and 
holy banners frequently occur. After these proces- 
sions the worshipping company eats and the young 
men hold country sports before their elders and 
the young girls and then continue their shy court- 
ing as couple by couple they walk home through 
the encouraging dusk. Most of these local saints 
are specialists whose powers are suited to neigh- 
bourhood needs, but some of them, as St. Ives, 
the only lawyer saint of which I know, have 
powers suitable to any Breton need. More of 
these ancient fanes constructed like most of the 
buildings in this granite, wind-swept country 
would be standing today, had not the irrever- 
ence of the Revolutionary times laid hands upon 
them. 

About half-way to Morlaix we passed several 



I20 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

weather- worn old granite churches with beautiful 
steeples. One of strong and delicate lines was 
pierced by so many openings as to suggest the 
apertures in lace. These churches must have 
been built by the ancestors of the owners of some 
chateaux hard by whose fine and simple grounds 
we admired in passing. Simplicity is the key- 
note of Breton buildings and homes and views, 
and loyalty the key-note to duty to pastors and 
masters, as is tender reverence the key-note to their 
conduct towards the memory of their dead for 
whom they perform many an ancient rite, founded 
on the customs of the old Celtic people from whom 
they come, and sanctioned by the Roman Catholic 
Church whose wards they are. Thus in their 
mountain fastnesses, or in quaint villages along 
the Channel or Atlantic shores there are practised 
on certain Church anniversaries such rites as 
the Feast of the Dead, when at midnight food is 
spread on the dining-room table and the hearth 
brushed clean that the souls of the dead may 
until morning light find food and warmth while 
all the household prays; another ceremony is that 
of starting bonfires at night upon the hilltops on 
St. Peter's Eve during the saying of prayers, after 



«C?^!*t 




Queen Anne's House at Morlaix 



Photo Neurdein 



BRITTANY 121 



which each participant places a smooth stone, as 
a seat for a soul, in one of three circles closely 
surrounding the ashes. And sometimes in the 
dusk as the night winds begin to whisper the 
Breton hears the poor dead tramping by him and 
sings a song of consolation, or turns away his 
eyes lest seeing he should distress them. 

Presently we came to Guingamp (population 
9200), on the Trieux whose church Notre- Dame- 
de-Bon-Secours is a favourite resort for pilgrim- 
ages. And by 12.15 we came to Morlaix a place 
of 15,000 inhabitants, and lunched fairly well at 
Hotel de I'Europe. Then we walked through a 
market in full blast, wherein a very few of the 
peasants wore their typical costumes. "We" 
visited the quaint old sixteenth-century church of 
St. Melaine, near a splendid modern bridge and 
viaduct one hundred and ninety feet high; went 
through the highly carved wooden house of Anne 
of Brittany, through whose marriage with Louis 
XII. Brittany became a part of the Kingdom of 
France; viewed the English fountain marking the 
spot where six hundred surrendered English soldiers 
were treacherously m.urdered; saw the commercial 
basins whence four miles down the Morlaix River 



122 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

to the Channel goes much of the produce of this 
region to Northern Europe, the three hundred 
steps leading to the upper town, the long street 
piercing Morlaix, and then returned to our hotel 
in St. Brieuc comfortably by five o'clock. At 
the markets and in conveyances on the way we 
had seen live-stock of very many kinds, and pro- 
duce and household supplies galore. After dinner 
at 7.30 we inspected this fast developing town. 



Sunday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 
al metres at time marks 

8/7/10 9-15 St.^Brieuc Lamballe 20 9.50 Lunch at H6tel de 

" 2.30 Lamballe Dinan 37 5.45 France. _ Very 

poor. Dinner at 

57 3-50 H6tel de Bretagne. 
Fair. 



Left at 9.15 for Lamballe, whence at 9.50 from 
Hotel de France sent Tom with the machine and 
a note for "them," telling how to see Dinard, 
and that we awaited them at luncheon at Hotel 
de France, Lamballe, and suggested going via 
Loudeac and Pontivy to Quimperle for the night. 
Then "we" walked through the town and saw 
some quaint old wooden houses, highly carved, 
and having overhanging stories ; passing through a 
corner of a park, tree-lined and terraced, we visited 
the much "restored" Church of Notre Dame, 



BRITTANY 123 



which was formerly the Chapel of the Dukes of 
Ponthievre, and from which we had a most 
beautiful view; we visited also the ordinary but 
ancient Church of St. Jean. 

Our visit to the spacious, wonderfully clean and 
delightfully neat government breeding establish- 
ment where some three hundred stallions are 
kept to improve the breed of heavy horses in 
France was a great treat to me. Most of the 
horses were Percherons, Bretons, or Ardennes, 
though some were from around Boulogne, and 
some half-bred of each from lighter mares. A 
few pure-bred racing horses, "Pedler," a strictly 
English horse, a race winner, best; and a good 
rangy French horse " Longueville," next best; 
some half Arab and English and French horses 
were very good. Of the heavy draft horses, the 
Percherons were the most compact and showy 
for their size, I think. The Breton and Boulogne 
horses were mightier, and looser built. The 
Ardennes horses ranked between the above two 
classes. We were conducted through this splendid 
establishment by an employe arrayed in a red 
coat, blue hat, white trousers, and spurred foot- 
gear, who finally had us register as visitors, 



124 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

received our poiirboire as a welcome matter of 
course, and then bade us "good-bye" with military 
precision. 

After visiting the Church of St. Martin, part old, 
partly restored recently, and admiring its fine 
roofed doorway with settle side-seats, and its 
old tower as good as was that of Saint Jean, we 
kept "rendezvous" at the hotel at 11.20. No 
arrival. Wrote letters and postals; and lunched 
poorly at 12.30. Then some reading about 
France. At 2.30 "Tom" came back with the 
car and a telegram from Paris from "them" 
saying, "Unavoidably detained." 

Whereupon we started for Dinan by the direct 
road but stopped at a village about a mile from 
Dinan to mingle with the people holding an 
impromptu fair in connection with a race meeting 
over a turf course. Refreshments were to be 
had as follows: Two "hot dog" sausages and a 
wedge of bread, 10 centimes; cider by the cup, 
5 centimes; two mushroom crackers, 5 centimes; 
dehulled almonds for a few centimes; and some 
hard dry sugar cakes like those we used to buy 
at corner groceries when we were children. Among 
the amusements were games of chance; testing 



BRITTANY 125 



strength through blows with a huge mallet; and 
singing songs in company with a fiddler who offered 
"broadsides." There was also a steeplechase of 
about two and one half miles over low hurdles, 
and one high jump before the grand stand, with 
seven entries by soldiers. Winner, a hard riding 
man on a rangy high-bred horse, which finished 
under whip and spur, swinging his tail around 
quickly in circles. One may say that the rider 
really won the race. The second horse was too 
long held back. The riding was very indifferent. 
On to Hotel de Bretagne at Dinan by 5.45. 
We secured a fair room overlooking the extensive 
plaza, righted ourselves, and walked to the ancient 
Church of St. Malo which is of conglomerate style; 
and then to the Church of St. Sauveur. Curiously 
the right side of this church is of Romanesque 
architecture and the left of Gothic. Within lies 
the heart of the great General Bernard Du Gues- 
clin. The interior is in careless and mixed style, 
but has some good Gothic chapels and details. 
From the "English Garden" on the town's old 
ramparts we had a fine view of the valley of the 
Ranee River and later we saw a part of the 
chateau of the Duchess Anne, of Brittany, now 



126 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

built into the town walls. Dominating the long 
public square is Fremiet's fine equestrian statue of 
Du Guesclin who when recapturing the town from 
the English, in 1359, although he was as small physi- 
cally as he was great in all military matters, 
defeated in single combat an English Knight, 
Sir Thomas of Canterbury. When we saw it, the 
square was dressed for a f^te that night. Thou- 
sands of small thick drinking glasses, blue, red, 
yellow, and white, containing fuses set in tallow 
were strung on cords along all its walks. That 
night we were to see them lighted up. 

But now we returned to our hotel for dinner. 
We hurried through it, for a dense crowd had been 
attracted by the Race Meet Fete. After having 
succeeded in getting some food with some excellent 
coffee, — most of the Breton coffee is poor, — we 
walked in the brightly lighted streets which were 
crowded with merrymakers buying and throwing 
confetti, but saving most of it for the Place Du 
Guesclin. All the tapers were shining in their 
coloured glasses; a large brass band was blaring 
away in the huge stand, draped pagoda-like with 
bunting of many colours and numerous strings 
of the coloured taper glasses brightly burning. 




Photo Laurent 
Fountain of Saint Barbara 
Young girls wishing to marry within the year throw pins into 
this fountain 



BRITTANY 127 



One third of the square had been made into a 
castle with varicoloured bunting walls glowing 
in red and blue lights, cast on it from rear and 
front. The entire square was surrounded by a 
railing within which one could obtain admittance 
for a small sum and engage in the battle of confetti. 
There, as on the walks just outside, the crowd 
was thick as sardines in a box. 

But by this time "they" were to have been 
brought to the hotel by Tom whom we had sent 
to meet "them" at Dinard. "We" found "them" 
in poor rooms though the management had 
promised us it would do its best. "They" were 
very tired after a long and strenuous crossing of 
the Channel from Havre, rushing around for the 
wedding, abortive efforts to sail to St. Malo, 
and a return via Paris. Very fatiguing all that. 
. To rest was the thing, and so "good-night" in 
preparation for an early start tomorrow. 

Monday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug, 8, 1910 9.0s Dinan Pontivy 125 i.oo Lunch at 

" 2.20 Pontivy Concarneau 85 7.45 H6tel Grosset. 

;: Dinner Beau 

210 9.20 Rivage. Or- 

I dinary. 

Started at 9.05 after strong cafe au lait at a 
table on the pavement in front of the hotel. 



128 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Passing through Lamballe I recovered my umbrella 
which the manager and femme de chamhre of 
the Hotel de France had failed to put in the 
car with our other belongings. During all our 
four thousand miles of motoring we rarely had 
rain in the daytime though frequently at night, 
so that except as a mascot to ward off rain, there 
seemed little need for the umbrella. Having 
picked it up we ran along through cloth-making 
Loudeac (population 5700), situated on the 
borders of a forest of 6670 acres. Then came 
Pontivy (population 9500) with its old and pictur- 
esque town begun twelve hundred years ago, and 
the new fine little town Napoleonville, founded 
by Napoleon in 1805 to keep in order this most 
royalist country. But it is all called Pontivy 
now, after St. Ivy a monk of Lindisfarne, Ireland, 
who founded a monastery here in the seventh 
century. We lunched at Hotel Grosset where 
the meal was tolerable, and the characteristic 
native costumes of the waitresses very notable. 
After viewing the monument of the Breton- 
Angevin agreement of 1790 surmounted by an 
allegorical statue, and noting in the near distance 
the demesne and chateau of the Duke of Rohan, 



BRITTANY 129 



we started for Concarneau via Quimperle, Hos- 
porden, and Pont Aven. 

Quimperle (population 9000) is at the confluence 
of two little rivers, and has two old churches of 
which Ste. Croix, built after the model of the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, has 
been rebuilt in the last fifty years. The curious 
ancient shape of it contrasts strongly with the 
freshness of its rebuilding, but its very ancient 
crypt and four-hundred-year-old rood screen are 
very convincing. The town and its bridges and 
ancient houses are deservedly popular with artists, 
many of whom we saw at their easels. That it is 
near the sea was attested by the large quantities 
of salted mackerel, great live crabs, etc., which 
were being offered for sale at many of the 
stores. 

Soon we passed through Hosporden, and pictur- 
esque Pont Aven beautifully situated on a tidal 
river, and at 7.45 ran into beautiful, individual 
Concarneau which has a population of 8000. 
Here we tourists tried four hotels before we found 
a vacancy. A curious, out-of-the-way sort of a 
tourist hotel our Beau Rivage Hotel proved to 
be. But it was right on the bay, and there, if 



130 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

not in our bedrooms, was clear water of delightful 
temperature in plenty, as we promptly proved. 
Underfoot were big pebbles. The bath-houses 
were rough and clean as were the towels, and oh ! 
how small those towels were. Wandering about 
Concarneau we came almost at once upon the wide 
area around the west side of the fine old artificial 
harbour containing an out-of-date fort. The 
evening had come when we first viewed it, and 
hundreds of staunch sailing boats, used in sardine 
fishing, had entered it for the night, and had 
drawn up their pale blue seines to the mast- 
heads to dry, while in the offing other such boats 
were sailing in with the sunset light upon their 
varicoloured sails. When we had found a hotel 
at the other side of the town upon the open bay, 
the sky to the westward was glowing with all the 
tender and varied colours of a summer sunset 
over the water. But when the golden crescent 
moon was setting across the rather narrow bay 
towards Beg-Meil and its golden light danced in a 
long line across the waters, and lit up in shades of 
gold or brown some banks of ragged clouds which 
floated in the sky, then the scene was most beauti- 
ful. Gradually the lights died out and in the 



BRITTANY 131 



grey-black sky the stars shone brightly. Con- 
carneau is very lovely. But we tourists are con- 
ventionalizing it. I cannot recognize the French 
*"Arry" and " 'Arriet" as I can their English 
originals, but I believe that most of the flood of 
summer visitors who have overflowed and con- 
ventionalized nearly all of the beautiful Bretagne 
which we visited belong to that unpropitious class 
of travellers. 

Tuesday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 9, 1910 9. IS Concarneau Penmarch 60 i.oo Lunch at H6- 

2.15 Penmarch Vannes 186 8.15 tel du Phare 

d' Eckmiihl. 

246 9.45 Very poor. 

Dinner at Ho- 
tel du Com- 
-^ merce et 1' 

Epee. Ex- 

cellent. 

We had expected to cross with the machine by 
ferry to Beg-Meil, immediately across the Bay, 
but the ferry-boat was being repaired. Therefore, 
starting early, at 9.15 to reach Vannes (population 
23,000) that night, our way was around the Bay 
of Concarneau, or, more accurately, the Bay 
of the Forest, and carried us to Croix Neuve, to 
La Foret, to Fouesnant. There we stopped to 
visit a dull and worn old church in good repair, 
and just made ready for a peasant's funeral, as 



132 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

we learned from the large red-faced beadle at its 
door. Eight old women in black dresses and 
white caps and carrying Mother Gamp umbrellas 
awaited it in a hollow square beneath a tree and 
gossiped quietly. Knots of men and women 
were coming in from the cross-streets of the village. 
Then we started away so as not to intrude, but 
had to stop within fifty yards, for lo! the funeral 
cortege itself. It was headed by boys ringing 
hand bells. Then came in the order named men 
bearing crosses mounted on tall staves; the chief 
mourners among the men with their arms crossed 
on their chests; the chief women mourners with 
their faces muffled in hoods; a plain coffin of 
unpainted white wood (ash?) in a plain cart drawn 
by one horse; many mourners four abreast; one 
tall, bent, middle-aged, very sad-faced man (How 
closely had he been related to the deceased?); 
and last, a straggling crowd, who seemed less 
mournful as they stretched away rear-ward. 
Years before I had read Blanche Willis Howard's 
pathetic novel Guenn. Was there a romance 
involved in this funeral as in Guenn' s? Beyond 
doubt there was agonized love and surely God's 
tenderness was not forgetful of the mourners* 



BRITTANY 133 



need. Breathing a prayer for them I turned 
away as they entered the church, and with one 
consent we had the automobile start again. 

We were in hilly country and ran along rather 
winding roads with groves of trees here and there, 
especially along the tidal river Odet, many charm- 
ing glimpses of which we had from time to time. 
A fiat-bottomed barge ferried us and the machine 
across at Benodet. Thence we ran through a 
romantic country to Pont I'Abbe (population 
6000) which grew up around an ancient abbey. 
Its inhabitants are said to be descended from 
a pure Celtic people. Thence by a rough road 
through a wild country swept by the sea winds 
we passed on to Penmarch, seeing here and there 
a great rude monument of uncarved stone. So we 
came to Penmarch, once proverbial for great 
wealth derived from its shipping, for up till a 
little more than two hundred years ago the cod 
fisheries near by were a rich resource. Then 
the Banks of Newfoundland lured the Penmarch 
and other Breton fishermen, and comparative 
poverty began to help the physical inroads of the 
sea to gnaw away the prosperity of this ancient 
settlement. Its one modern feature is the great 



134 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Lighthouse of Eckmiihl (two hundred feet high) 
whose electric hght is visible for sLxty miles. There 
are two hotels within the wide-flung limits of 
this scattered town, — Hotel du Phare d'Eckmuhl, 
where for our sins we lunched miserably at one 
o'clock, and another which cannot be so bad. 
However, the fresh mackerel was very good. 

Then we passed along the coast and enjoyed some 
marvellous glimpses of the sea, and on through a 
chain of modern seaside resorts, very over-de- 
veloped, many of them, and without doubt the crea- 
tion of get-rich-quick-seaside resort companies. At 
one of them, La Boule, I sampled some very small, 
ordinary, native oysters and tasted some weak and 
tepid native beer. But as we had the ancient 
and stone built Quimper (population 1900) at the 
junction of the Steir and Odet, and the famous 
plain of Carnac with its dolmens and Druidic 
memories to visit before we came to Vannes for 
the night, we hastened along, away from " every- 
day dom." The contrast made greatly for our 
enjoyment of the splendid thirteenth to fifteenth 
century Gothic Cathedral of St. Corentin in 
Quimper, with its fine glass. In Place Corentin 
we saw the Statue of Laennec, born there in 1781, 



BRITTANY 135 



the inventor of the stethoscope, and the bene- 
factor after whom is named one of the chief 
Medical Societies of Baltimore, Maryland, the 
home of the great Johns Hopkins Hospital and 
University. The architecture of Quimper is 
quaint; and its waterside situation very pictur- 
esque and having a strong influence upon its 
life. 

Taking with us a delightful impression of 
Quimper, we began a long, zigzag search for 
Carnac. Apparently we were off the beaten 
road. However, over this, that, and the other 
narrow road winding through moorland country, 
soon after we left Quimper we came at the sweet 
and tender evening hour to Carnac. There in 
long lines were the great rough parallelograms of 
time-worn granite menhirs mostly set on end, but 
some of them prone as gravity had decreed. In 
olden days the Druids conducted here the worship 
of the sun. These huge stones, some of them 
sixteen feet high and weighing forty to fifty tons, 
extend in three principal groups numbering re- 
spectively 874, 855, and 262 of standing stones out 
of an original number of 12 to 15,000. They are in 
thirteen avenues and form a quincuncx. Today 



136 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

they are a diversion to the traveller, and to the 
small Breton boy of the neighbourhood a glorious 
plaything. Several boys were clambering up 
and down them in great glee. And one very 
regularly blond Irish and active boy, who had 
acted as our guide just as we approached the 
quaint stones, was evidently destined to become a 
man of means, for his masterly job apparently was 
to collect coins from visitors upon whom he 
pounced as a guide and lecturer and climber. I 
have seldom seen any shrewder expression than 
gleamed from his young greenish-grey eyes and 
freckled face. We left Carnac as the sun was 
setting, and carried with us along the shadowy 
road to Vannes and even until now, a strong 
impression of its antiquity. This we should have 
spoiled had we stopped at the great modern 
hotel called Hotel de 1' Ocean, to be seen in the 
distance, in a village called La Trinite-sur-mer, — 
famous for oysters and a bathing beach. So 
bringing our unimpaired impression of ancient 
Carnac and its wind-swept, sunset moor along 
with us, we entered Vannes at 8.15 and found 
delightful quarters and a good dinner at Hotel 
du Commerce et I'Epee. 



BRITTANY 137 



Wednesday 


Started 
at 


From 


To 


Aug. 10/10 


9.50 


Vannes 


Rochefort- 
en-Terre 


•■ 


12.00 


Rochefort- 


La Roche 






en-terre 


Bernard 


' 


3.00 


La Roche 
Bernard 


Nantes 



Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 
metres at time Remarks 

44 11.00 Lunch at 

Hotel de T 

25 1.20 Esperance. 

Hopeless. 

23 7.30 Dinner at 
H6tel Royal, 

92 7.00 Very good. 



At our early breakfast we sang the praises of 
the hotel; but each regretted that the fine bath- 
rooms were not more numerous. There were 
only two to a floor. Then it developed that when 
each of us tried for the bath we had each eagerly 
bespoken, it was only to learn that it was in use by 
one of our party so that we simply held back 
with all the patience we could. Who was the 
gloating engrosser of those fine bathing facilities 
which were so very tempting after the make- 
shifts forced on us by most of the Breton hotels, 
we had recently visited? We did not say so, but 
we each thought the guilty party an unconscion- 
able to so greatly delay us, and I think we expres- 
sed our opinions — politely of course — but with a 
certain allowable clearness. Soon we had each 
proved an alibi. Lo, and behold! it was "Tom" 
who had thus luxuriously prolonged his bath. 
His French had not been sufficient to let him under- 
stand for whom of the party the first of a series of 



138 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

hasty baths was intended and he had plunged in 
and remained there. This innocent trouble was 
the only one Tom gave us throughout our whole 
tour. 

But Vannes on the Vannes River three miles 
from the shallow and island-studded Gulf of 
Morbihan, capital of the Department of Morbihan, 
and formerly chief city of the Veneti whose 
leather-sailed, shallow-bottomed fleet so nearly 
defeated Caesar's as he relates in a difficult passage 
unpleasantly familiar to most of us in our school 
days, was to be seen, and accordingly we had read 
up about it and otherwise prepared for that last 
day in characteristic and lovely Brittany as best 
we could. There in the fine Place de I'Hdtel-de- 
Ville we admired Le Due's equestrian statue of 
Constable Arthur de Richemont (i 393-1458), 
co-worker with Joan of Arc in finally driving the 
English out of France. The good modern build- 
ings, and the ancient Cathedral of St. Pierre, 
thirteenth, fifteenth, and eighteenth centuries, and 
the many very quaint and ancient houses in the 
Cathedral quarter were proof enough that through 
the centuries Vannes was the capital city of the 
surrounding country. Only spontaneous strength 



BRITTANY 139 



could have preserved so much from the destructive 
wars which have so often worn it down. Chief 
among the attractions of the self-contained and 
soundly matured city of Vannes is the garden-like 
Promenade de la Rabine near the harbour, with 
its statue of Le Sage who was born at Sarzeau 
just south across the Bay, and who through his 
Gil Bias has been a benefactor to all laughter 
lovers everywhere. So much and very much more 
of pleasure we owed to Vannes. But each day 
in delightful Brittany had held most charming 
wanderings for us. 

Therefore we started early for a final relish of 
her appealing and mellow pleasure grounds. We 
ran through hilly, sequestered country over good 
roads to the ancient and picturesque village of 
Rochefort-en-terre, dominated by the fine re- 
mains of an ancient castle of Henri Rochefort's 
family. Much of it was destroyed by the Red 
Revolution, but the old gateway, and a few of the 
rooms remain within the borders of its great high 
buttressed courtyard. From an eyrie it overlooks 
a broad expanse of open country with high, 
dreary-looking hills in one direction by way of 
contrast. Order reigns within this romantic 



140 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

demesne. The dining-hall of the old castle is now 
a spacious modern salon upon whose walls hang a 
number of the strong, finely coloured, and well- 
posed portraits painted by its owner, in his studio 
built into part of the ruins. Beyond the studio 
are a number of the old-time dungeons and an 
old draw-well which furnished water to the castle 
during time of siege yet remains in the middle 
of the courtyard, protected by its ancient coping. 
Gazing deep down into it we saw phosphorescent 
gleams here and there; and were informed that 
they came from a species of lily growing from 
crevices in the side of the well. The comfortable 
twentieth century living in the romantic and 
ample setting of this old and ruined fortress- 
castle is very charming. The chatelaine, a 
delightfully kind and winning Baltimore woman 
very graciously invited us to remain to luncheon; 
but that would either have forced on her a meal 
too soon after her breakfast or have kept our 
pilgrim band too late. Bidding her and her 
house guests a cordial good-bye and leaving our 
compliments for the artist owner who v/as absent 
for the day in Nantes, we departed. 

We wanted to drop down into the village of 



BRITTANY 141 



Rochefort-en-terre to inspect a little inn there 
which the artist and his wife have helped the 
owner develop into a good rival of that one called 
"H6tellerie Guillaume le Conquerant," which 
"we" had visited at Dives in Normandy. But 
time drove us on. 

We passed along over winding, hilly, wooded 
roads, with here and there a glimpse of water, till 
at high and dry and unpopulous La Roche Bernard 
we lunched very poorly at Hotel de I'Esperance. 
Gladly we left it for Nantes. Amongst other 
things making that departure pleasant was our 
escape from a certain dumb, half-witted beggar. 
Brittany has many beggars. Its peasants look 
on the idiotic as the special agents of fortune. 
From the poor fellow's extra misfortune I assume 
that our La Roche Bernard acquaintance was of 
special importance. By the way, the very large 
number of respected beggars in abstinent Brittany, 
and also in thrifty and hard-working Belgium, 
in one of whose chief cities they even constitute 
one third of the population, sets one to ask the 
reason why. The most popular Breton saint — 
Saint Yves — is the patron of beggars and of hospi- 
tals, and of lawyers too, who are no beggars at all. 



142 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Both countries are almost entirely Roman Catho- 
lic. Are there any Protestants in Brittany? There 
are said to be only fifteen thousand in all Belgium. 
And in both countries there is taught and blissfully 
received a most ingenuous and literal belief in 
every word of the Vulgate and in all the legendary 
histories and teachings of the saints. Thus is 
carelessness as to providing for this world's de- 
mands for livelihood and praise for the giving 
of alms inculcated unceasingly under the influence 
of the Church. 

In Belgium the Church is the great twin sister 
of thrift in moulding the national character. 
In Brittany the Church is nearly all in all in the 
lives of the people, who exhibit the full round 
of passionate Celtic characteristics moulded into 
silent and persistent practice under the spell of 
the seafaring life to which its coasts invite them 
or of its wild and sparsely settled highlands — 
Mountains of Aree and Black Mountains — and 
moorlands which offer contrast in the variety 
of its territory. The sea lures many as far away 
as Iceland for the cod-fish which once frequented 
the coast of Brittany and then led its inhabitants 
to follow them to the Newfoundland coast. The 



BRITTANY 143 



"Pardons" — that is, religious pilgrimages by 
water or by land, on some Saint's day, — are very 
frequent. They begin at one of the many stone 
Calvaries, which dot this country at more frequent 
intervals than they do in Normandy, and after 
religious services in a church they proceed all 
night or all day to the special chapel of a saint. 
Miniature Lourdes of many kinds are to be 
found throughout Brittany. But these " Pardons " 
have grown so boisterous now and then and 
their cruder features so ludicrous that Mother 
Church v/ith her customary tact is repress- 
ing them. However, she retains that which is 
significant in them just as she so wisely adapted 
for her Christian worship many of the undying 
simple countryside methods from the old Druidic 
ceremonies that gave way to the meaning of 
Christianity. 

The wild beauty of shape and colouring of 
Breton coasts, bays, effects of light and cloud; 
and of moors, woodland, and valley stretches is 
unique so far as my travelling experience has 
shown me. The trail of the tourist covers it all 
now. And soon I and my fellows will in one way 
or another fully conventionalize it. Go to Brittany 



144 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

before it is too late to sample its ancient quaint- 
ness. Its wandering bards have just died out; 
its "Pardons" are being treated as a show for 
tourists; and the city dweller is in spectacular 
evidence there during the summer-time. But 
the dogged religious faith and patriotism of its 
natives is trying to assert itself in the revival of 
its long-gone-by Miracle Plays; and in the collec- 
tion and statement of many of its ancient songs 
and stories and traditions. Within the six de- 
partments lie et Vilaine, dominated by Rennes 
(population of 75,000), the ancient capital of 
Brittany; mountainous C5tes-du-Nord, dominated 
by the ancient seaport town of Dinan (population 
of 11,000); Finisterre containing Brest on the 
west coast, the great naval base; Morlaix in the 
north, the commercial ; and Quimper in the south, 
the seat of ancient legendary Breton life; Mor- 
bihan with Vannes that dry and self-contained 
and persistent city and Loire Inferieure dominated 
by Nantes (population 133,000), constitute the 
great peninsula of Brittany. To its separateness 
can be traced much of the solidarity of its life, 
while the Celtic blood of its inhabitants is quite 
sufficient to account for their lively faith, imagi- 



BRITTANY 145 



nation, and general attractiveness. Religion has 
greatly helped to make them staunch. Over the 
English Channel, Cornwall in England, and Ire- 
land hold many of their race. And wherever 
they are found they exercise a peculiar and 
ingratiating influence of which whole-souled and 
tender religious faith is the principal element. 

But I am neglecting our route over quiet roads. 
We passed through Hubinac and Guerande to 
Le Croisic, another but cruder and smaller Con- 
carneau with wonderful stretches and little bays 
of blue and dancing sea, to Le Pointe Croisic, a 
charming peninsula being rapidly conventionalized 
into a summer settlement, through the coast 
villages of La Baule and St. Nazaire to Savenay 
and St. Etienne to Nantes. There at H6tel 
Royal we passed a comfortable night and enjoyed 
ample bathing facilities. On the morrow we 
were to leave Brittany. I hope to visit it again; 
and especially its most north-western coasts 
and remoter mountain fastnesses. In them there 
lingers the Brittany of the days of the Duchess 
Anne, last inheritor of its rulership. She carried 
it to the Crown of France when in 1491 she married 
Charles VIII. of France and after his death his 



146 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

successor Louis XII. The "Duchess Anne"! 
the Bretons love her still as their most distinctive 
national figure. Did she not live the typical life 
of Brittany, indulging even in pilgrimages with 
the people? One such she made barefoot to the 
Chapel of St, Anne of Rumengal in Finistere. 
What sought the little Duchess of Brittany, then 
also the Queen of Louis XIL of France, from her 
saintly namesake as she sang the canticles in 
the procession or prayed in the chapel or drank 
from the sacred fountain in the water-filled district 
of St. Anne? An heir to her thrones? It never 
came. France kept and keeps her Duchy. But 
the Bretons are Bretons distinctively even now. 

Thursday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

8/11/10 10.40 Nantes Ancenis 36 1. 10 Lunch at Hotel 

" 2.40 Ancenis Chateau a 3.30 des Voyageurs. 

Serrant Atrocious. Din- 

" 4.00 Chateau Saumur 62 6.30 ner at Hotel Bu- 

Serrant dan. Indifferent. 

131 6.S0 

Nantes we saw little of, because, I believe, our 
view of it from the St. Etienne side and the view 
of its fine docks now revived by a good canal of 
deep water led us to dwell on its modern side. Its 
ancient castle which dominated this seaport of 
great importance in early days and in the days 




+-> 

03 



BRITTANY 147 



of the Religious Wars and in the days of the 
Red Revolution, when it successfully resisted the 
Vendean Royalists, we did not visit. Nor did 
we try to locate generally the position where the 
cruel Carner agent of the Convention drowned 
in scuttled ships great numbers of those he 
suspected of Royalistic leaning. 

The Edict of Nantes in 1598 by Henri IV. is 
the highest historic illuminant of the city. Who 
has not heard of that edict, and of its Revocation 
in 1685? Nantes has a foreign trade chiefly in 
sugar; but is suffering greatly from the rivalry of 
St. Nazaire, forty-five miles westward at the 
chief exit of the Loire which here breaks into six 
mouths. Proximity to the sea and its position 
as entrepot of much of the rich valley of the Loire 
— "the granary of France" — has made and now 
maintains Nantes. 

At or near the mouths of great rivers draining 
great valleys, are generally to be found the most 
important group of cities of any country. France, 
with three out of four of her great valleys running 
in a general north-western direction from her 
highlands extending north-easterly through the 
region of Toulouse, Le Puy, Lyons, Besangon , and 



148 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Belfort, and drained, respectively, by the Seine 
through Paris and Rouen, the Loire through Nantes 
and St. Nazaire, and the Garonne through Bor- 
deaux; and with the fourth valley drained south- 
ward from those highlands by the Rh6ne, whose 
general delta contains Marseilles, illustrates my 
point. But a nation's capital is frequently deter- 
mined by the resultant of three influences : central- 
ity in general, safety, and population. Into the 
middle one of the three great valleys of northern 
and splendidly watered France we had now entered. 
Through its length of about five hundred miles it 
is fed by many affluents, which, like the Loire 
itself, bring in alluvial soil from their special 
portions of this vast and nearly rockless and 
frequently tilled plateau, so that the Loire though 
rapid is silent, sandy, and shallow, bordered gener- 
ally by hanging foliage, and subject to great 
overflows in the rainy seasons of late springs 
and autumns. 

Into this fertile and matured region we plunged 
upon leaving Nantes. Through history it had 
been a delectable country. Hither successive 
bold spirits had led their followers to fight for its 
possession, only to guard, and develop, and then 



BRITTANY 149 



weakened by the luxury its wealth produced, to 
give way in the course of generations to succeed- 
ing conquerors. Thus Celt, Visi-Goth, and Frank 
successively overcame it. Then came Feudalism 
building here great fortress castles to make sure 
that overlords should continue to thrive on the 
great wealth wrung from the agricultural labour 
of their wretched subjects and later, not infre- 
quently, also, from trading centres they allowed 
to exist. Who among the earlier barons should 
dominate this country? That family with the 
soundest continued policy, possessed of the 
keenest brains and courage and most dauntless 
persistence. The world has always given its 
greatest prizes in hereditary governing along 
those lines. It always will, and mutatis mutandis 
that rule is as nearly infallible when anywhere 
consistently applied as a rule can be. The 
Plantagenet family applied it in and about this 
Touraine country we are discussing, gained the 
lordship of all the region, and, following their 
fortune, reached finally the throne of England. 
But I am omitting to state that under them in 
the Touraine country were built very many fortress 
castles, to be succeeded, as peace and luxury sup- 



150 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



planted struggle and warlike living, by pleasure 
castles; and they in turn, except a few, have 
generally been destroyed in those fierce and 
brutal uprisings of the people, grown to know 
their united power, which were their logical and 
nemesis-like reprisals for all the long, long centuries 
of cruel oppression they had endured at the 
hands of their feudal lords. 

Mother Earth yet gives her old-time splendid 
crops in this land of good soil, plentiful sunshine, 
ample water, and ceaseless work. But it is the 
thrifty man of the people who now reaps the fruit 
of the harvest. He works, he saves, he tastes 
his simple pleasures; he will not risk losing them. 
Even his family is made to fit his acreage. Beauti- 
ful France and his measured life continue thus to 
hold him and herself so fast, so fast. He will 
not colonize; if he would, his women would not 
accompany him. So France is virtually pent 
by herself within the Channel, the Atlantic, the 
Pyrenees, and Mediterranean, and Italy, Switzer- 
land, Germany, and Belgium. 

But I am keeping myself from the good broad 
white national macadam road that stretches 
yonder beyond this Ancenis where we stopped and 



BRITTANY 151 



which will carry us through Anjou to Saumur and 
so into Touraine proper. Again I pause to quote 
from my commonplace book what happened at 
Ancenis at our wretched luncheon of some poorly 
stewed nondescript meat, thin wine, bad cheese, 
and tripe served hot like bologna sausage. A certain 
apparition there compensated me. It was a very 
short and monstrously fat man whom I first saw 
occupying nearly all of a bench before the inn. 
He sat opposite me at table, and ate voraciously. 
The landlady told me that the man was in metric 
measurement the equivalent of four feet seven 
inches high, weighed so many kilos, the equivalent 
of 444 pounds, was a musician, and the year 
before had persuaded her handsome young cook 
to marry him, so that she now had to have him 
about the place. What and why and how such 
a courtship and marriage? From his appearance 
the cook must have given him all the good food 
she could. Certainly we had none. Never have 
I seen such another figure of a man. He was very 
proud of himself, for he followed us to the door 
and announced his weight; and when I assured 
him that he was an immense success he smiled 
most benignly and graciously waved us good-bye 



152 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

as we left at 2.40 for Angers, an ancient town 
which has a population of 83,000. We viewed 
with great interest the brown and many towered 
and extensive old Chateau d' Angers which is 
little changed as to exterior but is reshaped within. 
It was built by St. Louis (Louis IX.) about 1250, 
partially destroyed by Henry III. in 1589, and 
partially restored soon afterwards. Here, on April 
5, 1598, Henry IV. signed the agreement ending 
the war between the Protestant and Roman 
Catholic parties. In recent times, till 1856, it was 
used as a prison, and now it is used as a depot for 
arms for the reserves and as a powder-magazine. 
In front of it is the statue of King Rene of Anjou, 
father of Margaret of Anjou wife of Henry VI. of 
England. The pedestal is surrounded by twelve 
statues representing members of King Rene's 
family connected with the governance of Anjou. 
The celebrated David d' Angers is the sculptor. 
We hastened on to the magnificent and fully 
restored Chateau of Serrant, belonging to the 
Due de Tremoille. It is an immense building 
with three rectangular wings and two big domed 
towers. It stands in the middle of a large park, 
and opens on a Court of Honour faced by a grand 



BRITTANY 153 



entrance between two pavilions. Around it are 
wide moats and in the rear a fine garden. The 
domain of Serrant belonged to the De Brie family 
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and to 
Hercule de Rohan, Due de Montbazon, from 1596 
to 1636, when the Bautin family bought it. In 
1755, Serrant was made a countship in favour 
of its purchaser James Walsh, an Irish nobleman, 
who had bought it in 1749. He was an ancestor 
of its present owner. Walsh was an ardent up- 
holder of "The Young Pretender," "Bonnie 
Prince Charlie, " and had expatriated himself to 
serve the Jacobite cause. 

On we went to Saumur (population 16,000) by 
6.30 and dined indifferently at our otherwise 
comfortable "Hotel Budan," though my bed 
was but six feet long. The hotel was on the 
Loire opposite an island upon which there was a 
ruined chateau. There was a fine old bridge 
near by, whose side was decorated with a long, 
wavy line in high relief, and a bathing barge with 
decent cheap rooms was close to it. On ramps 
running into the river washerwomen were at 
work, and some fishermen tried their luck where 
the water was least disturbed by the washing. 



154 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

At the ancient Church of St. Pierre we saw some 
antique tapestries, then inspected some narrow 
streets and queer shops in the old town. 

Friday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

at metres at time marks 

8/12/10 10.30 Saumur Chinon 30 12.15 Breakfast at H6- 

" 1. 15 Chinon Rigny-Uss6 20 2.05 tel Sudan, Sau- 

" 2.25 Rigny-Uss6 Azay-le- 15 2.55 mur. Poor. Lunch 

Rideau at Hotel de 

" 3.15 Azay-le- Tours 27 4.30 France, Chinon. 

Rideau Very good. 

92 4.20 Dinner at Hotel 

de r Univers. 
Excellent. 

Leaving H6tel Budan at 10.30 we inspected, 
with a courteous French officer, the Cavalry School 
where four hundred pupils at a time are trained 
to become fine riders. There are said to be 
twelve hundred horses in the stables. Most of those 
I saw were half-bred but a few were thoroughbred. 
They seemed to me a very ordinary lot. The 
saddlery was substantial and plain ; the stalls good 
and well kept; and the exercising grounds very 
large. At 11.35 we started for Chateau Chinon, 
the ancient fortress castle of the Plantagenet 
Counts of Anjou. We ran along the Loire and 
passed between the river and the Chateau de 
Montsoreau now converted into dwellings but re- 
taining its crenellated front wall, flanked by towers 
overlooking the ancient forecourt. Leaving the 



BRITTANY 155 



river we passed south-easterly through the level 
country characteristic of all this Touraine region, 
and soon came within view of the long white 
walls and the towers of quaint Chinon crowning 
the hill above the village of Chinon, to which the 
chateau now belongs. Celt and Roman used 
this commanding site for a fortress, then the 
Roman Catholic Church with its usual shrewd 
choice of the most prominent site built a monastery 
there in the fifth century and later a college. 
The Franks used the hill as a fortress site, as did 
the Comtes de Blois, from one of whom the 
Plantagenet of 1044 took it. So it came into the 
possession of Henry 11. of England who died there, 
as did his son Richard Coeur de Lion. Both 
were interred at the Abbey of Fontevrault. The 
chateau is a roofless and gutted ruin, but it shows 
strength of outline and position. In the room 
in which Joan of Arc picked out the King of France, 
Charles VII., whom she had never seen before 
and who was dressed like all the other men in 
that room, there is standing the beautiful old fire- 
place which then adorned it. Rabelais is said 
to have been born in the town of Chinon; the 
great Richelieu owned the chateau and was 



156 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

overlord of the village, and his family continued 
to be its seigneurs until the Red Revolution. 

After a fifty-minute run we enjoyed a visit to 
the homelike little Chateau of Rigny-Usse. It is 
built high above the road and overlooks a lovely, 
formal, sunken garden from which there is a view 
of a little, foliage-lined stream near by and of dis- 
tant meadow lands. The wilder gardens beyond 
the house, its distracted old chapel beside it, and 
the ancient tower and the true-bred gathering of 
it all into a gentleman's residence of today is 
very charming. It is the country place of the 
Comte de Blacas. As we entered its gates and 
looked around for the caretaker to secure entrance 
tickets to the grounds of the chateau, a very hand- 
some young lady driving out of the grounds in a 
pony carriage, with her maid by her side and a 
groom up behind, very courteously assisted us. 
We were told that she was the daughter of the 
owner of the chateau. Later, in Paris, we learned 
that she was a friend of relatives of some of our 
party and lived in the next house to the one 
we were then visiting. 

One more chateau, Azay-le-Rideau, we wished 
to visit before getting to Tours, where we expected 



BRITTANY 157 



to find our trunks sent on from Antwerp over 
three weeks previously, the delight of good rooms 
in the justly praised H6tel de I'Univers, and the 
great luxury of up-to-date bathrooms. In thirty 
minutes we reached the perfect little white gem 
of a well-restored chateau, Azay-le-Rideau, whose 
high steep roofs, turreted corners, and its "L" 
shape, at whose junction rises a large round tower, 
constitute it one of the best examples of early 
Renaissance architecture. It is surrounded by 
water — a moat on one side and the little River 
Indre on the other three. You enter its grounds 
by a simple bridge and from the Court of Honour 
one passes into a charming hall whence a grand 
staircase leads to the more formal rooms of the 
building, which, without its furnishings and with 
its immediate grounds, was bought by the Govern- 
ment from the Marquis of Biencourt for $40,000, 
and is now used as a Museum of Renaissance Art. 
A perfect idea. The chateau is supposed to 
have been built in the thirteenth century by one 
Hugues Ridel or Rideau, but it is certain that it 
was reconstructed in 1518 by one Giles Berthelot, 
Treasurer General of Finance, from whom Francis 
I. confiscated it. Henri de Berninghem owned 



158 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

it in the seventeenth century, built its stables 
and servants' quarters, and here entertained 
Louis XIV. for a night. 

Having thoroughly enjoyed this perfect specimen 
of a Renaissance building and refreshed ourselves 
with some presumably pure bottled water pur- 
chased at the near-by cheap restaurant in the little 
village of Azay (population 2200), we took up our 
joyful route to Tours, which we reached by 4.30 and 
found at Hotel de I'Univers the good rooms with 
baths for which we had telegraphed, and letters 
and papers from home, but not our trunks, as 
they were awaiting inspection at the local custom 
house to which they had come from across the 
Belgian border, and which closed each day at 
five o'clock. But our other treasure trove made 
us happy, and we made the most of it all. We 
had an appetizing dinner at 7.20. The delicious 
"Vouvray" wine is made very near Tours, and 
what we consumed of it at dinner that night 
we thought especially good. After dinner "we" 
walked in the brightly lighted streets near our 
hotel and along a sad little **gay white way," 
lined with beer shops, where very flashy and pitiful- 
looking "ladies" promenaded. We returned to 



BRITTANY 159 



the hotel and I brought my note-book up to date. 
Thus far we had run about eighteen hundred 
miles. This in addition to some twelve thou- 
sand miles by the machine before this trip ne- 
cessitated taking the car to pieces and cleaning and 
oiling its "in'ards." The heavy noise of a brass 
band and of singing in the public square near 
the hotel could not disturb the rest of our health- 
ily tired little party. 

Saturday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

3/1.5/10 I. IS Tours Loches 41 2.15 Good lunch 

2.45 Loches Montresor 18 3.15 at Hotel de 

" 4.25 Montresor Chenonceaux 40 5-40 1' Univers, 

*' 6.4s Chenonceaux Tours 32 7.15 Tours. Din- 

ner at Hotel 

131 3-15 de r Uni- 

vers. 

Says my commonplace book: 

Beautiful but warmish day. Cafe in "our" room 
No. 43 overlooking garden at 9 o'clock and at 9.30 my 
brother-in-law and I went in auto to Custom House 
for our baggage sent on by Edwards & Co. from 
Antwerp on July 19th, by petite vitesse, to Tours. 
Notice of its arrival was dated August 8th — twenty 
days enroute! Examination of Customs folk per- 
functory. Went to gare for wagon to carry them 
to Hotel de 1' Univers. Referred to chef de gare who 
gave us an address of a baggage man just opposite. 
He had a stuffed head of a white horse in his office. 
Was that horse the helper of his first hauling? A 



i6o MOTORING IN EUROPE 

most kind good face the old horse had. Broad between 
eyes, etc. By representing our ladies' long absence 
from their trunks we secured the management's 
promise that they would be delivered in thirty 
minutes and they stopped a passing team in re. The 
baggage came some hours after. 

After planning our day among the neighbouring 
chateaux, we had at our hotel at 12.30 an excellent 
luncheon consisting, says C. P. B.,^ of fried sole; 
omelette; very good, though small, artichokes; 
Vouvray wine, fair; and Evian water, and at 1.15 
started for Loches (population 5000) and its 
famous chateau. 

There on a hill overlooking the town, built in a 
semicircle around a broad meadow, was this 
fortress stronghold of the Plantagenets. It was 
high, long, white, turreted, towered, with hanging 
courtyards toward the town, and was enclosed in 
an extremely thick circular wall. The Counts of 
Anjou gained it by marriage in 886. Originally 
a monastery had occupied its site, and afterward 
the chateau was prey to contending kings of France 
until the Plantagenet ownership. John "Lack- 
land, " afterwards King of England, surreptitiously 

' Commonplace book will hereafter be so designated. 



BRITTANY i6i 



gave it to France in 1193; but Richard Coeur de 
Lion seized it when he returned from the Crusade 
in 1 194. King Phihppe Auguste recovered it, in 
1204, after a year's siege and gave it to Dreux 
de Mello, Constable of France. Subsequently 
it became a State prison and royal residence. 
There Charles VII. sojourned with his belle amie, 
Agnes Sorel, who continuously urged him to war 
against the English. She died there and is 
buried in the Chapter House in a high and beauti- 
fully proportioned tomb mounted by a life-sized 
recumbent effigy of her in marble. Her hands are 
raised together in prayer. At her head are two 
kneeling angels, at her feet two horned lambs. 
Around the coping of the sarcophagus runs an 
inscription in low relief. Agnes Sorel was ever 
the stronger character and caused her royal lover 
to bestir himself for France, when without her 
even the enthusing heroism of Joan of Arc would 
have left him stolidly inefficient. 

Louis XI. enlarged and "perfected" the deep, 
dark dungeons of the Loches Chateau, in which 
were confined such notables as Cardinal Balue. 
He was the first to experience life in the cramped 
cage he had invented. It was a cube of only seven 



i62 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

and a half feet and hung on the outer wall of the 
chateau. Philippe de Comines, was similarly 
caged there; Geoffrey de Pompadour, Grand 
Chaplain of France, and Archbishop Georges 
d'Amboise were also long imprisoned in the 
chateau. The worst cells are in the basement. 
There is the cell of Sforza who in his nine years of 
occupancy adorned its walls and who, upon being 
released, died of joy in an upper room. 

Adjoining the castle proper is the fine, thousand- 
year-old Church of St. Ours. In its treasury is 
the "Sash of the Virgin." Opposite is a glorious 
chestnut tree said to have been planted by Francis 
I. Near the King's apartments in the chateau is 
the beautifully simple oratory and small bedroom 
of our old friend "the good Duchess Anne de 
Bretagne, " wife in turn of Charles VIII., last 
king of the older Valois line, and of his cousin 
Louis XII., first king of the younger branch of 
that same House. Loches now belongs to the 
French Government and is used officially. It is 
very massive in its ruins and is a monument of 
cruelty to prisoners. It was bathos to lunch as 
we did under its very walls and beneath its historic 
chestnut tree; and the beer, St. Galmier water. 



BRITTANY 163 



tea, cakes, and chocolate we lunched upon were 
inappropriate too. 

We got away at 245 for Montresor, a village of 
six thousand people, where is situated the small, 
well-appointed chateau of that name, founded in 
the tenth century. Its ancient ruins are ivy- 
covered, and the present comfortable and beautiful 
residence was rebuilt upon them in the fourteenth 
and sixteenth centuries. It has passed through 
many ownerships, but now belongs to the Polish 
family of Branscki, who bought it in 1848. It 
has a double encircling wall flanked with towers 
and is built upon a great enclosed rock, which 
indeed has been partially excavated to serve as 
part of the dwelling. Within the chateau there 
are many treasures of art, notably some gold 
plate given to the heroic King John Sobieski by 
Vienna after his memorable defeat there of the 
Turks, and the silver gilt services of that same 
John Sobieski, and of Sigismond II., Kings of 
Poland. 

But the most remarkable feature was shown us 
in one of the turret rooms. It was in a white 
marble urn properly inscribed, and was nothing 
less than the embalmed heart of Claude de Bastar- 



1 64 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

nay, eldest son of one of the old-time owners, 
who had made his people promise that his heart 
should always remain at Montresor. So it was 
stipulated when the Bastarnay family parted with 
the property. Seeing the small grey-brown object 
alleged to be the heart of young Bastarnay, I was 
moved to relate to my party the story of the English 
naturalist, Buckland, who being shown the very 
small dried-up, embalmed heart of Louis XIV., of 
France, is said to have been overcome with an 
obsession which led him to seize and swallow it. 
This story which I have several times seen in 
print was received with the questioning amusement 
it deserved. Is it true or is it not? The rest of 
Claude de Bastarnay's body lies in the handsome de 
Bastarnay tomb erected by his father in the beauti- 
ful Renaissance church he built in the village in 1520. 
After visiting the chateau's lovely small garden 
we started at 4.25 for Chenonceaux which we 
reached after a long, roundabout route, during 
which we stumbled into the pretty and limited 
grounds of a small, ancient-looking chateau 
which seemed to be maintained in perfect order. 
The valet de place had evidently been ordered to 
send strange visitors on their way, for he said 




>1 4-1 



n 



o 5: 



X v-j 



u 5 



o hT -Si 






O li 



^13 06 



c ;i,^ 



^ CD 



3 P 



ra 



d o 2:^ 






BRITTANY 165 



very abruptly that the chateau was not open to 
inspection. It must, indeed, be very annoying 
to all about a place to have the undesired tourist 
keep tumbling in. We explained that we sought 
directions for reaching Chenonceaux and regretted 
giving any trouble, whereupon we were given due 
directions. After a long time on the road we 
reached the lodge of Chenonceaux only to learn that 
we could not see its interior as the family which 
acquired it in 1895, that of Mrs. Francis Terry, 
were "at home." But the high, massive, turreted 
front of the main building of the chateau erected on 
mighty masses of masonry rising out of the Cher 
River, and the great extension built on nine arches 
beneath which that river flows, were well worth 
viewing. We approached the chateau on foot 
as was demanded, and by the long sycamore- 
bordered avenue with moats on each side, which 
leads from the great iron gateway to the forecourt 
of the chateau. On each side of the entrance is 
the figure of a sphinx. There are, says C. P. B., 
large gardens to right and left of it ; an ancient 
lodge tower to the right ; a drawbridge over the 
moat; a pier, a smaller drawbridge, a broad walk- 
way, and the chateau itself, whose main building 



i66 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

was partly erected by Thomas Bohier in 1496 and 
then completed by his widow.' Francis I. seized 
it for debt in 1535, and used it as hunting head- 
quarters. Henry 11. gave it to Diane de Poitiers 
who built the nine arches over the Cher, but his 
widow Catherine de Medici took it from her in 
exchange for the Chateau of Chaumont and erected 
the barrack-like addition on the arches over 
the Cher. The whole place is immense and 
massive and remote and gloomy. The only live 
and cheerful object we beheld there was a beautiful 
swan swimming about the moat where it meets 
the Cher proper. 

We gladly started our 32 -kilometer run to 
Tours beneath a brilliant yellow and red sunset 
and over a very fine straight road. Dinner at 
the rUnivers at 7.45 was most enjoyable after 
our fare at Loches. Tours about us that night 
was, as the night before, bright with electric 
lights, and noisy with brass bands and singing. 



Sunday 


Started 


From 


To 


Kilo- 


A rrived 


Riinni 


ng 


' Meals and Re- 




at 






metres 


at 


time 




marks 


8/ 14/ 10 


10.15 


Tours _ 


Amboise 


24 


10.55 






Lunch at Grand 




11.40 


Amboise 


Chaumont 


17 


12.05 






Hotel et Grand 


" 


12.40 


Chaumont 


Blois 


20 


i.iS 






Hotel de Blois. 


" 


4.00 


Blois 


Cliambord 


18 


S-oo 






Good; poor ser- 




7.00 


Chambord 


Tours 


20 
99 


8.00 


3.40 


- 


vice. Dinner at 
Hatel de V Uni- 
vers. 



BRITTANY 167 



This seems to have been an especially joyous 
day to me, for C. P. B. records that after an early 
breakfast and a chat with '*them" over general 
plans, we visited Amboise (population 4700), 
Chaumont (population 11 00), Blois (population 
24,000), Chambord (population 211) — about 
whose wonderfully interesting and beautified 
chateaux I shall presently summarize. I wrote 
as follows: "Wonderfully interesting and beauti- 
fully set [these chateaux], resplendent beneath 
the blue of the sky and in the white sunshine of 
August." 

But the democracy in me found powerful 
intensification as I realized upon learning their 
histories of the frightful cruelty and oppression 
of many of the French kings. Is not the broad 
case of "Individual versus Irresponsible Power" 
rather a French case only? And what is the clue 
through the labyrinth of national French history? 
Does Charlemagne stand for national order against 
previous narrow local self-will; and after him did 
the French social pendulum swing back? And 
then did France segregate from the Carlovingian 
Empire, and did Feudalism perfect its development 
until Louis XL conquered it? Did France under 



i68 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Francis I. reap the benefits of becoming a great 
unified nation, following the union of Brittany and 
the rest of France through the marriage of Anne 
of Brittany with Charles VIII. and Louis XII. and 
the marriage of Francis I. and Claude of France? 
Does the rottenness which follows mercenary 
wealth directed by the "end-justifies-the-means" 
policy — as typified by the Henry II. — Catherine 
de Medici marriage and after Henry's early death 
Catherine's dominance during the reigns of her 
three weak sons, Francis II., Charles IX., and 
Henry III. — account for the course of events 
offering enormous opportunity for direction of 
national character to the "Personal Monarch," 
Henry IV.? and to the increasingly absolutist 
kings through Louis XIV., his great grandson 
Louis XV., who lived on the shell of this power, 
and his grandson, mild Louis XVI., who was 
swallowed up in expiation by the Red Revolution? 
Probably that is the case. Reading that over may 
lead me to state elsewhere in my doings on August 
12, 1 9 10, the analysis of French history in which 
I indulged that day. 

But now the splendid road along the tree- 
fringed Loire brought us to the princely Chateau 




Photo Neurdein 



The Chapel of the Chateau of Amboise 



BRITTANY 169 



of Amboise set high on a hill, which had been 
fortified in turn by Gaulish, Roman, and Feudal 
lords. In one direction it commands an intimate 
view of the town, and of stretches of river, and 
on the other an extensive valley. Up the steep 
path to the chateau, through the tunnel-like en- 
trance into its great plateau of a courtyard we 
walked to gain the view. At the plateau's corners 
overlooking the river and valley stand huge towers. 
Only part of the ancient chateau remains, but 
there are a number of high pitched rather modern 
ones with gable and towers. 

To one side of the courtyard, partly projecting 
beyond its wall, is the very beautiful Gothic 
Chapel of St. Hubert, built by Charles VIII. It 
is a gem of richness, and looks like the wonderful 
reliquary of St. Ursula, in the Hospital St. Jean, 
Bruges, to which I have referred in the second 
chapter of this itinerary. Leonardo da Vinci 
died at Amboise during its occupancy by Francis 
I., and is buried in this Chapel of St. Hubert — a 
fitting mausoleum for one of the world's very 
greatest painters. No painter has equalled his 
rendering of colour in shadows though Rembrandt 
possessed like mastery of light in shadows. 



170 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

In the ownership of Amboise the Comtes d' 
Anjou were succeeded by the Comtes de Berri. 
Charles VII. confiscated it. Louis XI. lived 
here before shutting himself up in little plain 
Plessis-les- tours. Charles VIII. was born and 
died here; and here, too, Louis XIII. lived for 
some time. But its most startling history revolves 
around the Protestant plot to capture Francis II. 
at Blois from the Catholic party, and turn the 
government over to the Bourbons who were to 
convene the States-General. To avert that, the 
young King was hurried to Amboise. Thereabouts 
some fighting occurred and then an amnesty and a 
manning of Amboise with soldiers friendly to the 
Protestants. Again fighting broke out, the Pro- 
testant garrison was captured and by order of 
Catherine de Medici over fifteen hundred of 
them were hung from gibbets or from the balcony 
of the chateau. The Court left and has never 
again returned. 

Today the chateau belongs to the Due d' Orleans 
through inheritance from the Dues de Penthievres 
to whom Louis XV. gave it in exchange for their 
rights over the Principality of Dombes. It has 
served as a prison for high personages. Henry 



BRITTANY 171 



IV. here confined two of his sons by Gabrielle 
d'Estrees. Abd-el Kader was prisoner here for 
five years. It was restored to the Orleans family 
in 1872 and they have here established a hospital 
for their old servants. The old chateau is being 
skilfully restored by the Orleans family, but it is 
yet in a very rough condition. Its perfect chapel 
built for Anne of Brittany; the chateau proper; 
the remains of an older building, against the low 
doorway of which Charles VIII. injured his face 
so that death ensued; and the moat in which he 
originated and played tennis are chiefly notable. 

In careful restoration Chateau d'Amboise does 
not compare with the Chateau de Chaumont, 
the property of the Prince de Broglie since 1875, 
to which, about twelve miles away, we came along 
the same road bordering the tree-lined Loire over 
which it almost hangs. The ancient fortress 
which was here in the tenth century was razed 
some four hundred years later, and the present 
chateau, constructed in the transition style be- 
tween the military of the Middle Ages and the 
early Renaissance, was then erected. Between 
five great round towers having candle-snuffer- 
like roofs stretch connecting dwellings, while 



172 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

between them all is the courtyard in which there 
yet remains the deep water well sunk in far 
feudal times to ensure against water famine during 
sieges. In 1739, the wing overlooking the Loire 
was pulled down, so that a view of the Loire 
might be had by one of the long succession of fam- 
ilies owning it. 

After a considerable walk through a small park 
one enters the chateau over a drawbridge and 
beneath a portcullis set between two of the great 
towers. Within, all is in spick-and-span order 
and exquisite taste. But can this new-looking 
establishment be in verisimilitude the residence 
forced on Diane de Poitiers by Catherine de 
Medici in exchange for Chenonceaux, upon the 
death of Henry IL? And was this perfectly 
appointed bedroom the one in which that stormy 
bigot lived, and was this connecting one that room 
in which her pet astrologer wove his horoscope 
around her, and alas! around the many who suf- 
fered at her bloody, ruthless hands? No ! But the 
walls are the same. Nearly everything else in 
this very beautiful home, refurnished in correct 
imitation of antiquity in the wing we tourists 
were allowed to inspect, is of modern manufacture. 



BRITTANY 173 



Many famous folk have visited here. Among 
them Benjamin Franklin, when the chateau was 
owned by Jacques Le Roy. 

We reached Blois (population 24,000) at 1.15, 
and immediately indulged in a good lunch, poorly 
served, at "Grand Hotel et grand Hotel de Blois." 
Then we walked through the town up the incline 
to the promontory between the Loire valley and 
a ravine, on which ever since early feudal days 
some sort of defensive building has stood. The 
oldest part of the present one is about seven 
hundred years old. From a small, open, tree- 
bordered space in front of the entrance to the 
quadrilateral chateau we entered its immense 
Court of Honour, which is surrounded by four 
wings, the uncompleted south wing now containing 
a museum of pictures and antiquities. The east 
wing was built by Louis XI L in late Gothic 
style; the north one by Francis I. is lush with 
the architectural richness of the Renaissance, 
especially in the beautiful outdoor stairway run- 
ning to the very top of its five storeys; and the 
west wing begun by Gaston d' Orleans, brother of 
Louis XHL, with Frangois Mansart as architect, 
and containing the chapel, was completely restored 



1/4 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

about 1843, so that the whole chateau is precisely 
as it was in the sixteenth century except that this 
Gaston d' Orleans building replaces the original 
one erected on its site by Charles d' Orleans, father 
of Louis XII. 

Count Stephen of Blois, grandson of William 
the Conqueror, and King of England, lived here 
from 1 135 to 1 1 54. The Orleans dukes in the 
person of Duke Louis, second son of Charles V., 
acquired it in 1391. Thenceforward its history 
is largely that of France. Duke Louis was 
assassinated there, whereupon his disconsolate 
widow, Valentine de Milan, immured herself in 
a black-draped room in the chateau until her 
death on December 4, 1408, having lived up to her 
motto, "Nothing more for me, for me nothing 
more." If I have given too much space to this 
poor overstrained lady it is because of the constant 
though half-mad quality of her unhappy love. 
Louis XII. and his daughter Claude and son-in- 
law Francis I. loved to live at this Chateau of 
Blois, but after her death Francis I. lived at Cham- 
bord, Fontainebleau, and Villers-Cotterets. At 
Blois, Henry III. reunited the States-General of 
1576 and 1588 and fearing the constantly growing 



BRITTANY 175 



power of the Due de Guise and his brother Cardinal 
Guise, had the Duke murdered almost before his 
very eyes and threw the Cardinal into a dungeon of 
the chateau, where next morning he too was 
murdered. A few days later the Queen-Mother, 
Catherine de Medici, died at the chateau, and the 
Court left it forever. Louis XIII. imprisoned 
his mother Mary de Medici there for two years. 
Then she escaped. It was there that Gaston 
d'Orleans, brother of Louis XIII., lived expatriated 
from the Court and attempted to set up a provin- 
cial literary court of his own, but dismally failed, 
and there that Louis XIV. first saw Louise de la 
Valliere. Except two Polish Princesses connected 
with the French Royal family through Louis 
XV. 's marriage with the beautiful Marie Les- 
czinska the chateau knew no more occupants of 
kingly rank. 

Louis XVI. converted it into a barracks. And 
when in 1841 it was taken over as a national 
monument, it began gradually to be restored to 
its ancient glory and its old-time quaint peculiari- 
ties in interior decoration, such as painted walls 
and porcelain or tiled floors, etc. One interesting 
room is the work-room of Catherine de Medici 



176 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

with its many very delightful carved wood panels. 
Our guide opened one of them. Here, said he, 
Catherine de Medici kept her poisons! Did 
she? At any rate that wicked bigot fairly infests 
the place. Our last hearing of her v/as when that 
same guide led us to the half enclosed gallery of 
"Catherine de Medici," giving from the fifth 
floor a fine view to the north over the town of 
Blois. But is not that gallery's more authentic 
name "I'attique"? 

An intensely interesting, handsome place, associ- 
ated intimately with much revolting history is the 
Chateau of Blois. We left it with the pleasant 
belief that Chateau de Chambord which was to 
end our day of intensive chateau visitations would 
offer us a grander and clearer though much shorter 
history; and a vastly more congruous specimen 
of architecture, which, replacing an ancient hunt- 
ing seat of the Comtes de Blois, was intended by 
its builder Francis I. to proclaim him one of the 
greatest builders in the world. So it did as 
far as size is concerned. Set in a great park of 
some fourteen thousand acres, whose high brick 
wall is about twenty-two miles in length, this 
marvellous and enormous Renaissance pile of white 




< 



fe 



o 



BRITTANY 177 



stone is not yet fully completed, but it took 
eighteen hundred men over fifteen years to put 
it together as it is. It is placed in something of 
a hollow; but Francis liked it for its hunting and 
because one of his many lady-loves resided in the 
neighbourhood. His son Henry H. did not live 
to complete the building. Louis XIV. sometimes 
lived there for short periods and there for him 
was first played under Moliere's direction Le 
Bourgeois gentilhomme in 1770. The exiled King 
Stanislas of Poland lived there for eight years. 
He injured Chambord by filling up the moats. 
Marshal Saxe subsequently received it from Louis 
XIV. and further harmed it. Later Napoleon 
I., after there forming the Legion of Honour, gave 
the estate to the Prince de Wagram. He by 
cutting down all of its splendid tim.ber and selling 
it for a song further damaged the property, and 
then sold it for about $300,000 to a committee 
formed by Count Adrien de Calonne to buy it 
for the grandson of Charles X., last King of France 
of the senior Bourbon line, the infant Due de 
Bordeaux who thenceforth was known to history 
as the Comte de Chambord. France never 
allowed him to occupy it. But awaiting him 



178 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

there for many more than three score years of 
his hfe in the big state bedroom was the largest 
and most elaborate bed I have ever viewed. It 
became a national joke. 

To-day the estate belongs to the heirs of his 
sister, the Duchess of Parma, who yearly spend 
some $10,000 out of the estate's yearly income of 
$17,000, in restoring the chateau. The outer 
building forms a parallelogram, 512 feet long by 
385 feet wide, whose corners are marked by four 
prodigious towers. Within this building is a 
similar set of buildings, except that the towers 
are loftier and that the north fagades of the 
buildings merge so as to show eight towers. 
The chateau contains 440 apartments. The 
buildings on the south front were only one storey 
high and were originally covered with terraces. 
All the lower exterior of the chateau is severely 
simple, while the upper is elaborately ornate. 
Its tall chimneys, domes, spires, bell-turrets, 
are very richly sculptured, while the "lantern" 
rising from the middle of the roof is very showy. 
It is about thirty-eight feet high and rests on eight 
arches about eight feet high. Above it is a small 
belvedere, over that a bell-tower, and still higher, 



BRITTANY 179 



a great stone fleur-de-lis. All the work is most 
delicately and happily done. 

The chateau has many great rooms, halls, and 
corridors, and a bold, well-lighted staircase at 
each end of the main building. But the chief 
glory of the interior is the grand central stairway, 
remarkable not only for its beautiful highly de- 
corated Renaissance architecture, but also on ac- 
count of its double spiral stairways so spaced that 
a person descending may pass one ascending with- 
out either being able to see the other. Only the 
apartments occupied by Louis XIV. are furnished. 
They were prepared for the Comte de Chambord 
at the time of the Restoration and contain a few 
good pictures. The very beautiful and highly 
decorated "study" of Francis I., later used as 
the praying-room of Marie Lesczinska, Queen 
of Louis XV., is further interesting because in 
one of its window lights Francis scratched with 
the diamond of his ring the oft quoted verse, 
"Souvent dame varie; Bien fol est qui s'y fie"; 
that is, "Woman changes often; Fool is he who 
trusts her." But was not the American Indian 
wiser when he remarked, "White man very 
uncertain"? The stables are back of the chateau 



i8o MOTORING IN EUROPE 

and can accommodate twelve hundred horses. 
Chambord was very interesting to me, especially 
as it was the only chateau viewed that day 
which I had not visited in the previous year, 
but in common with my comrades the day had 
presented me with the study of almost too many 
chateaux. One and all of us were very glad 
when eight o'clock found us again at our com- 
fortable old Hotel de I'Univers, Tours. Most 
of us dined in our rooms, and soon thereafter 
were enjoying the repose that follows a strenu- 
ous day. 

Monday, Aug. 15/10. We spent the day entirely 
in Tours (population 67,000), and Tom, the 
chauffeur, took the machine to pieces and cleaned 
and oiled it thoroughly. Tours celebrated the 
Assumption of the Virgin that day and so was in 
holiday festival, as we first learned upon trying 
to have some washing done. But we went to 
church "ourselves" in the eight-hundred-year-old 
St. Galienus Cathedral built on the site of two 
earlier churches, those in the fourth and sixth 
centuries, respectively. In its windows is some 
magnificent old stained glass. In a chapel to 
the right of the choir is the white marble tom.b of 



BRITTANY i8i 



the children of Charles VIII. It is said to have 
been designed by Jean Juste. During the service 
a fine, live "beadle" arrayed in red and gold 
and bearing a staff and sword kept everyone in 
order. Who would not be good in a church so 
regulated? But in earnest: The service was 
very sweet and solemn and the small organ 
most agreeable; the large organ was very 
little played. Presently we left and rambled 
about the rather prim streets. In the spa- 
cious public square so much agricultural pro- 
duce and so many agricultural implements were 
being exhibited, that it looked like a country 
fair. 

Letter writing, reading up about our travels, 
and newspapers, enabled us to comfortably rest 
and while away the day. 

Tuesday, Aug. 16/10. This day, too, "we" 
remained in Tours; while "they" went on a 
fruitless excursion to Langeais, but saw some 
interesting buildings. I looked forward to physical 
activity on the morrow, visiting a chateau or two 
and the town of Orleans and then — what? We 
would leave the general region of Touraine. 
Should we go on to Paris? 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Wednesday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 17, 1910 1.30 Tours Amboise 24 2.10 Lunch at 1 

" 2.55 Amboise Cour-- 42 4.00 Hotel de 1' 

^' Unive '^' 

ner ai 
Termi 
Good. 



Cheverny Univers. Din 

4.05 Cour- Orleans 77 S.20 ner at Hotel 

Cheverny Terminus. 



143 3-00 

Left cards for some friends. Sent our trunks 
and a hat-box on to Paris, lunched well and 
lightly at Hotel de 1' Univers, and taking the 
road again at 1.30 motored along the Loire happily 
to Amboise and its chateau, noting along the way 
the many wine caves and dwellings of wine opera- 
tives cut into the clififs. At Amboise we visited old 
St. Denis Church to see the group of life-size 
figures in coloured plaster, attributed to Leonardo 
da Vinci and termed Christ at the Tomb; and 
thought the work a strong though crude perform- 
ance. But is Da Vinci the artist? I think not. 
Then we went on past Blois to Cour-Cheverny, 
a good-looking, rather small chateau which on 
property belonging to the Heurault family from 
the thirteenth century was built in 1634 on the 
site of an earlier chateau and later passed out of 
the family. But in 1825 the Marquis de Vebrayre, 
who is an Heurault, purchased it, and now, 
with his family, makes it his home. In its large 



BRITTANY 183 



park, laid out in the English style, are many fine 
hills and a beautiful lake. In September, 1909, 
I saw some of its handsomely furnished ground- 
storey rooms, with their worn and polished oak 
floors, family portraits, etc. I hated, however, 
to intrude as a tourist into this occupied and 
cultivated old home of gentle folk and personally 
was easily reconciled, therefore, to be told on this 
later occasion that the chateau was not open to 
inspection. An excellent view of the fagade is 
obtained from the imposing iron gateway, through 
which only rulers may pass. The usual entrance 
is at one side of the property and is immediately 
opposite the old worn church before which is 
a rather picturesque wooden gateway. In the 
aisles of the church are a number of marble 
memorial tablets to the Heurault family. 

But time was calling us to part from this delight- 
ful Touraine country which is so in touch, often 
causatively so, with nearly every phase of French 
history, especially with the early and middle por- 
tions of it. Running through Brescieux and to 
and through Chambord we came to Orleans 
at 5.20, having approached it by the river road, 
whence we saw the two impressive towers and the 



i84 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

florid facade of its early seventeenth century 
cathedral. We entered the town over the bridge 
used by Joan of Arc when raising the siege by the 
English. Orleans is the military key to southern 
and eastern France and so from the earliest times 
has had a warlike history. Good rooms and a 
good dinner at 7.30 at Hotel Terminus pleased 
us greatly, though we found here poor and un- 
comfortable bathing facilities usual in all provin- 
cial France. 

During the night some very sharp noises with- 
out the hotel aroused me despite my customary 
tendency to sleep soundly and long. I arose and 
sat by the window and gazed into the broad street 
and watched the great face of the railroad station 
clock opposite, and listened to more noises of 
shunting trains and noisy engines. This was 
modernized France. Then I dreamed, awake, 
of the past as embodied in this Touraine country 
I was leaving. The solid remains of early and 
mediaeval France were there. The chateaux, 
towns, fields, rivers, woods, and landscapes seemed 
to belong to some former age with a different 
type of life and outlook and aspiration. The 
Renaissance yet jostled mediaeval times there, 



BRITTANY 185 



through the plentiful mementoes of each in stone 
and story interwoven forever into the tapestry 
of the nation's life. Tomorrow we were to 
start out to seek modern France, and so I bade 
good-bye in my thoughts to Touraine, the very 
granary of France — to sunny, fruitful, historic, 
causative, reposeful Touraine. 

THE TOURAINE COUNTRY. 

In this great Valley of the potent River Loire, rich 

filled 
With prime alluvial soil ere history first told its tales, 
The lusty Sun, and rain from clouds here driven by 

the wet southwestern Gales 
Have through the centuries coaxed fat yields from 

Mother Earth. 
For them have fought the wild beasts in their various 

turns, 
Then yet wilder men, then those wild men and un- 
tamed fiery Celts, 
Then those their great unequal, separate fights with 

Rome's great master; 
Then Rome, degenerate, yielded Clovis' Franks what 

now is France. 
Through these long centuries of war, and blood, and 

frequent change 
Boon nature did her vast rewarding crops present 

to all the labourers there ; 



iS6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

But stay — when frequent peace had given time to 

garner wealth, 
The fattest holdings all throughout the land pertained 

to mighty lords 
Who made its crowded feudal history of war, romance, 

of virtue, and of crime; 
Therein through lust of land or power or sport or of 

romance or love 
Came Royalty to rule and so rung out the knell of 

mediasval France. 



CHAPTER V 

TKrovigK France, Baden-Baden, "Wvir- 
temberg, and Bavaria to Ober-Am- 
mer^axi and its Passion Play, and tKen 
via Bavaria, W^xirtemberg, S^witzer- 
land and Baden-Baden and France 
to Paris. 



Thursday 


Started From 
at 


To 


Kilo- Arrivec 
metres at 


Aug. i8, 1910 


10.30 Orleans 

3.30 Fontaine- 
bleau 


Fontaine- 

bleau 
Troyes 


132 1. 35 
116 6.30 



6.0s 



Lunch at Ho- 
tel France et 
d' Angleterre. 
Good. Din- 
ner at Hotel 
St. Laurent 
et Commerce. 
Fair. 




EFT Orleans at 10.10, after a dis- 
turbed night's rest and an early 
inspection of that unattractive 
town of some 68,000 inhabitants 
and of the very respectable but unromantic- 
looking cathedral. After a long and roundabout 
run through rather uninteresting country we 
came to the beautiful forest of Fontainebleau 
and to Fontainebleau itself (population 14,000). 
Lunch was greatly desired. We were charged a 

heavy price for a moderate amount of food that 

187 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



was good. Only once before had our landlord 
held us up that way. There are specially high 
prices where gay Paris frequents. Alas, we had 
not consulted Baedeker. Behold! "Prices should 
be previously ascertained in every case," says 
he. 

During that luncheon the ladies of our party 
determined that we ought to go to Ober-Ammer- 
gau for the Passion Play. ' ' Very well. Very well . 
You know it is distant four days of long hard 
automobiling." "Yes." "Oh, very well then, 
if you don't mind that, we don't, " said my brother- 
in-law and I. Thus was it settled that after 
viewing the Palace of Fontainebleau we should 
rush to Ober-Ammergau, at least six hundred miles 
away, for the performance of the Passion Play on 
August 24th. 

Thereupon, we hurriedly inspected the Palace of 
Fontainebleau, than which none I know has more 
individuality. It dates chiefly from the reigns 
of Francis I. and Henry IV., and it was the favour- 
ite residence of Napoleon I. Here the shadow of 
Napoleon began steadily to obtrude. During all 
our preceding travel in France his doings were in 
the background, and the earlier ruling spirits of 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 189 

France to the fore. Here Napoleon bade good- 
bye to his household troops after abdicating. 
Instead, I think he should have retained all his 
official rights, titles, and commands, have found 
Grouchy 's army of 160,000 men in Belgium, and 
defeated the widely separated armies of the 
allies or died on the field of battle. He sug- 
gested, in writing, to the Provisional Government 
that he would serve as a mere general in order to 
lead Grouchy's army against the foe. But the 
crafty influences led by Fouche who had finally 
caused his abdication by producing a revolt of 
the Assembly through the false report that 
Napoleon was about to dissolve them were 
siifficient to defeat his proposition. The As- 
sembly knew that the allies would grant them 
peace if Napoleon were eliminated. And I pre- 
sume that none of them trusted any moral 
assurance of Napoleon. 

We must enter this reposeful old-fashioned, 
beautiful palace. Its larger rooms are very 
magnificently decorated and its long range of 
smaller rooms opening like alcoves on to a corri- 
dor are quietly rich in treatment. In these were 
the apartments of Napoleon. Most interesting was 



I90 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

the little round wooden-topped table on which 
lay his abdication in blank. Long he sat before it 
and thought, twirling round and round a half- 
opened knife until it made the conical hole they 
show you. After a while he signed. Then he 
took poison. Too much of it, for instead of death 
came nausea which eliminated the poison, so 
that he lived for St. Helena. 

But we must proceed to admire the gallery of 
Henry H.; the gallery of Francis I.; the apart- 
ments of the queen- mothers, occupied by Pius 
Vn. when a prisoner there in 1812-14; the apart- 
ments of Marie Antoinette ; but especially must we 
note the apartment of Madame de Maintenon to 
which in the latter and weary days of his preten- 
tious kingship came Louis XIV. regularly in order 
to escape into the peacefulness of "home." A 
little covered way open to the gardens runs by 
the side of these apartments. Yonder are the 
same beautiful gardens set with little lakes. 
These surrounding gardens, as well as the palace, 
seem saddening and beautiful. Their seductive 
and restful melancholy may have constituted 
their charm for the many sovereigns who have 
loved them dearly. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 191 

We had to begin betimes our trip across half 
of France and half of Germany to Ober-Am- 
mergau, according to orders from our own 
special sovereigns. My brother-in-law and I 
got the automobile started at 3.30, via Sens 
for Troyes (population 53,000), the ancient cap- 
ital of Champagne. It is quaint and inter- 
esting, with its ancient, narrow streets; for 
example, the yard- wide Rue des Chats, and many 
old wooden buildings. Here the mercenary 
Queen Isabel of Bavaria, as regent for her crazy 
husband, Charles VI., signed the infamous 
treaty making Henry V. of England regent of 
France and declaring the illegitimacy of the 
dauphin, afterwards Charles VII. However, Joan 
of Arc upset all Isabel's work generally and also 
captured Troyes. Our hotel here was ordinary 
in every way. We had rooms on one side of a 
courtyard in which were carriages and out- 
side street noises till late at night; and twice 
during the evening, the loud roaring of an in- 
coming automobile. Quite a combination of 
old-time and new-time French livelinesses, that 
trio. A number of the churches are old and 
interesting. 



192 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Friday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at tnUres at time Remarks 

Aug. 19, 1910 10.05 Troyes Brienne 36 11.00 Lunch at 

1 1. OS Brienne Wassy 34 1.30 Hotel du 

2.30 Wassy Dom Remy 64 5.35 Commerce. 

" 6.0s Dom Remy Nancy 63 8.30 Blow-out 

No. 3 on 

197 8.50 road near 

Las Roises 
caused two 
hours' delay 
Dinner at 
Hotel de 1' 
Univers et 
d u C o m- 
merce. 
Good. 

After walking about this dried-up-looking 
Troyes which architecturally and otherwise had j 
suffered greatly in 1814 because it was in the 
direct path of one of Napoleon's and the allies' 
last desperate campaigns, we left willingly at 
10.05 o'clock. Our route lay through quiet, 
well-cultivated country. Passing through 
Piney we came to Brienne, immortalized be- 
cause Napoleon was (1779-84) a cadet at its 
military school, which was suppressed in 1790. 
Before the Hotel de Ville is a good bronze 
statue of Napoleon as a boy of sixteen, 
and over the entrance door is a medallion 
with this inscription in French: "To me 
Brienne represents my country, for it was 
there that first came to me my conceptions as a 
man." We saw the school and the short narrow 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 193 

gravel walk in front of it. Before that door 
and beneath the linden trees walked Napoleon, 
the boy, dreaming many ambitious dreams, not 
least prom.inent of which were those devoted to 
the future caring for his family. Here at Brienne 
he successfully commanded his fellows at the 
besieging of the snow-fort ; wore his hat sideways ; 
and showed his power among his comrades. On 
the door is a list of some sixteen distinguished 
graduates of the school. Napoleon leads them 
all, of course. "The world's greatest wonder 
man in genius and work, since Shakespeare, he is; 
as also its greatest vulgarian in morals and in 
manners." We recalled that Napoleon fought 
a very bloody battle here in 18 14 with Bliicher 
whom he forced to retire, and Napoleon, despairing 
of finally beating allied Europe, tried here to get 
killed ; but he was only wounded. Speaking of this 
wound reminds me that General "Joe" Johnston, a 
great student of Napoleonic lore, said that when 
the body of Napoleon was prepared for burial at 
St. Helena there was counted on it nineteen wounds. 
General history has mentioned only a few of them 
■ — that of Lodi, Brienne, and another, I think. 
As we rolled away from Brienne the following 



194 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

thoughts occurred to me about Napoleon. When 
I turned to write out this " log " in the summer of 
1 91 3, they took the following form: 

NAPOLEON. 

Yonder lay all the smoking ruins of the France of 
Ancient Rule 

Encanopied with sullen, storm-tossed clouds of acrid 
black, 

While spurts of angry flame, yet lingering from the 
Red Revolt, 

Told in fierce gleaming of the unquenched fires of a 
people's hate. 

Then came Napoleon, a;nd order gave. The whirl- 
wind of his battles 

The murky air made clear; and to one blaze of glory 

Fanned all the close nursed embers of his country's 
wrongs; 

Served only France; gave her fit laws, and happy thrift. 

Then self o'ercame this conquering genius. What- 

soe'er he wished 

That he would accomplish ! Truth, faith, compassion, 
gentleness 

In manners, and in morals right, care for good of others, 

He cast aside to sate his mad ambition, and in his 
hours of doom. 

He first decreed the full blockade instead of some 
compact with England, 

And then the Austrian not the Russian match and 
so he felled himself. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 195 

From Brienne, over more of the splendid roads 
which, with a perfect canal system, Napoleon, the 
great engineer, made for France, thus providing 
unrivalled interior communication, we went 
through some plain agricultural country, but also 
through the national forests of Anjou, Soutames, 
and Der to Wassy (population, 3600). There 
the first massacre of Huguenots (1562) began 
the religious wars in France, through a quarrel 
between attendants of the Duke of Guise and 
some Protestants assembled to worship in a barn 
(now rebuilt and duly inscribed) opposite the 
present Hdtel de Ville. The architectural objects 
of interest are the old gateway with a belfry 
which marks the entrance to the town, and the 
Gothic doorway and the Romanesque tower of 
the eleventh to the sixteenth century church. 

Our lunch was a good one and included the 
specialty of the inn — a meat pie d, la Penard and 
some sour wine of the district. By the way, all 
the vineyards we had seen while touring in France 
were in wretched plight from the dry season follow- 
ing too much rain, and the old trouble of former 
years, the phylloxera. Spraying the vines with 
mineral solution had disfigured grapes and leaves. 



196 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Starting again at 2.30, we skirted the forest of 
Du Val and soon came to Joinville (population, 
3600) in the immediate home district of the Sires 
de Joinville. Jean de Joinville (1224-1317) was 
one of the comrades and chroniclers of St. Louis 
and later of the Guise family, and in one of his 
two chateaux here was signed in 1584 the treaty 
with Spain known as the "League of the Public 
Good. " A good statue of Jean de Joinville, an 
old bridge, several old churches, including the 
Chapel of St. Anne, and the Guise burial-place, 
give interest to the little town. 

About ten miles beyond we had a blow-out, 
so that for about two hours we walked forward 
on the fine tree-lined road and enjoyed the views 
over the undulating, half-wooded, half-pastoral 
country. Finally, the automobile caught up 
with us near the great park of the fine old Chateau 
of Bourlemont. As we had to press on to Ober- 
Ammergau we did not try to inspect it. In this 
district are many old Roman remains. They 
guarded the passes of this finely wooded, well- 
watered, and pastoral border Vosges country 
just as do the French today. 

Most of this part of France is national forests, 




-::^ 




a. 



m 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 197 

for the threefold purpose of conserving moisture, 
preventing floods, and producing wood. The Marne 
would otherwise be a flooding destroyer all the way 
to Paris, whereas its waters now advantageously 
join the Seine and Oise. The Seine itself needs 
to be similarly controlled. But the Government 
is not so active in its work for that valley as it is 
for the Rh6ne valley of the Jura Mountains. 

We swept over the ascending slopes of this strong 
Vosges country into the lovely valley of Dom 
Remy and the simple village of the same name. 
All this country is sequestered. Religion and 
long dreams indulged in during the watching of a 
flock of sheep or herd of cattle were dominant 
there in the year 1429 in the simpler days of Joan, 
the cow-girl. Her religious brooding over the 
woes of France turned her into Joan of Arc, the 
heroic leader of the forlorn hope of an army 
which the desperate Charles VII., persuaded by 
her calmly hysterical earnestness, submitted to 
her command. Born in 141 2, Joan was not 
twenty years old when, after several months 
spent at Chinon, Charles VII. and his advisers, 
distraught by the English terror and influenced by 
superstitious belief in the reality of the heavenly 



198 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

voices Joan claimed to hear giving her directions, 
allowed her to make her successful campaign to 
relieve Orleans. Then came Patay amid a series 
of losses and victories; the crowning of Charles 
VII. at Rheims; Joan's capture, trial, and burning 
at the stake in the market-place of Rouen, in 1431, 
in her twentieth year. Her confident emotion- 
alism and the superstitious fears of the age set 
her followers wild with reckless courage and 
dissipated at first the complete confidence of 
her English foemen. 

About this same time a heroine of Brittany, 
whose name I fail to remember, also believed that 
she heard heavenly voices directing her, but 
unsuccessfully led an army of Bretons in their 
bigoted peninsula to oust the English and restore 
France to Charles VII. ; but she and many of her 
followers were killed in battle. Charlotte Corday, 
in 1793, completes the great French trio of these 
pure and self-deceived heroines. 

We saw the statue of Joan in front of the 
village church; her cottage birthplace with 
Mercie's group in front showing Joan led forth 
by the genius of France. The royal arms of 
France granted to her family by Charles VII. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 199 

are over the simple door, while in a niche above 
is a kneeling figure of the heroine. The interior 
of the cottage is a museum of statues and other 
items connected with Joan's career. Three 
quarters of a mile away up a steep hill is the spot 
where Joan first became conscious of the heavenly- 
voices directing her. There is now upon that 
site an unfinished church decorated with paintings 
recording her performances, and another fine 
statue of Joan by Allar. I felt refreshed by seeing 
these memorials of the brave enthusiast. Some- 
thing of the feeling that I was in a neighbourhood 
consecrated by a mighty and transforming influ- 
ence was in my mind as I gazed back at Dom 
Remy, from the opposite hillside, on our way to 
Nancy. 

But thoughts about unreasoning faith were soon 
diverted as there came into view the splendidly 
placed castle of the Count of Alsace, overlooking 
much of that lovely and oft-disturbed district 
and later the high brick watch tower used by the 
French to spy out any invading German army. 
Alas! it has had to be put to practical use in this 
year of our Lord 19 14. So, enjoying the fine 
views over the rich, rolling, wooded country, we 



200 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

pressed farther through ancient Lorraine, and 
running rapidly through its easternmost part, the 
modern Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, 
came at 8.30 p.m. to Nancy (population, 110,000) 
where we spent the night comfortably after a 
run of 197 kilometres. The ladies did not com- 
plain. They were "game" and they were taking 
us all to Ober-Ammergau. 



Saturday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 20, 1910 1. 15 Nancy Strassburg 140 7.30 Lunch at H6- 

" 9.00 Strassburg Baden- 60 11. 30 tel de 1' Uni- 

Baden vers et du 

Commerce. 

200 8.4s Good. Din- 

ner at H6tel 
d'Angleterre. 
Excellent in- 
deed. Hotel 
Baren clean. 



At Nancy we bought two new tires after long 
search. We admired the handsome and good 
construction of the town and its many evidences 
of its ancient refinement as the capital of Lorraine 
and the seat of its dukes. After the last of these 
dukes, Stanislaus Lesczynski (d. 1766), ex-King 
of Poland, is named the beautiful Place Stanislas. 
Here will be found a bronze statue of Lesczynski, 
surrounded by a number of public buildings, a 
fine iron railing of the eighteenth century binding 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 201 

all together, and two ornamental fountains. 
There are seven handsome gateways to the town, 
an Arch of Triumph, and an excellent university 
specializing on forestry. 

Before Nancy, Charles the Bold was slain in 
battle in 1477, by his old enemies, the Swiss, and 
the Duke of Lorraine. In 1870, it was occupied 
by the Germans without any damage. May the 
present terrible war spare it too. But this is a 
troublous district that has had much history 
thrust upon it. In the bequest of his empire in 
840, Louis L, son of Charlemagne and of Hildyard 
von Hohenzollem, left to his son Lothaire, Italy, 
Burgundy, and Lotharingia or Lorraine, while 
his other sons, Louis and Charles 11. , received 
respectively Germany and France. 

In 1556, Henry II. annexed this region, virtually 
Lorraine and some of Alsace to France. Louis 
XIV. annexed more of Alsace in 1681, when he 
conquered and retained Strassburg and had it 
fortified by Vauban. The Peace of Ryswyck, 
1697, confirmed it to France, as did that of 
Rastadt in 1714. But by the Peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle in 1748 it was lost to France until the 
time of Napoleon I., when France regained and held 



202 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

it until 1870, when Germany took all of Alsace 
and much of Lorraine. 

Lorraine had been acquired in 1766, but was 
taken in part by Germany in 1870. About the 
time Lorraine was "acquired in 1766," Corsica 
(1768) was also acquired by France. That had 
the momentous consequence of causing the career 
of Napoleon L to be French. Under that potent 
influence Alsace and Lorraine became French 
again. Alas! for buffers, whether physical, moral 
or mental. Today, these districts are bitterly 
contested battle grounds again. 

Noting the heavy fortifications of Nancy, 
which is among the strongest of the forts con- 
stituting the second defence line of Paris, we 
started for Baden-Baden, as the commanders-in- 
chief of our expedition determined we should run 
extra long on certain days that we might stop 
at that famous resort. We left Nancy at 1.15 
and bungled out of town and went bungling 
through a plain agricultural country just because 
we had relied on the instructions of a wiseacre 
who told us "the shortest way," but not the way 
most easily found and travelled. Always select 
a clever guide and remember that the longest 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 203 

way round is often the shortest way through. 
By our "short cut" we lost time and also missed 
the view of the field of Agincoiirt, which is only 
some twelve miles north-east of Nancy in the 
Department of Meurthe. However, we finally 
worked through the "short cut," and via Mexille 
reached "Eulmont, " and then shortly Lincourt, 
the military custom-house station on the French 
border. There the French part of our Triptych 
was taken up and we crossed to the German 
military frontier custom house where particulars 
of our car and a permit to enter Germany were 
given us after a slight examination of some of 
our baggage, especially my sister-in-law's hand-bag 
and the bonnets in the ladies' hat-boxes. We 
paid sixteen marks for a fifteen-day permit to 
visit Germany and deposited 268 marks, I believe, 
in gold, to be returned to us upon surrender of 
receipt, when we should again recross from 
Germany into France. 

We were now in "the Vosges Mountains," 
according to German maps. Lorraine, the French 
call it; very debatable land, you see, very, very. 
However, it is well worth debating for. Its 
broad, beautiful, and well-watered valleys, well- 



204 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

wooded and lovely mountains, and industrious 
population are very desirable. But the roads are 
narrow and poor when compared with the Napo- 
leonic system we had just left. We passed 
Chateau Salins, Moreuvic, Lezey, Bourdonnay, 
Marzieres, Henning, Saarebourg, Phalsbourg, and 
Saverne (population, 9000), a picturesquely situ- 
ated old town, the country gradually becoming 
beautiful as viewed on either side, from the broad 
ascending plateau on which we were travelling. 
Very extensive were the views — patches of woods 
— and in the distance stretches of mountain 
forests. Saarebourg was having a fete. Phals- 
bourg, a walled town, was fortified in recent years, 
and contains many old houses. Two thirds of the 
way from Saarebourg to Saverne, beautiful forests 
and roads like a French estate, and then a wonder- 
ful long descent over a fine, tree-lined, winding 
road, down which we went very quickly for three 
miles, part of the time simply by gravity. 

We passed by picturesque Saverne and rushed 
on through beautiful country to smoke-covered 
Strassburg in Alsace. It is the capital of the im- 
perial territory Alsace-Lorraine and lies crescent- 
shaped in its deep valley. There we dined 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 205 

excellently at Hotel d' Angleterre, and were made to 
pay exorbitantly for it. "On to Baden-Baden," 
said the ladies. " It will afford us a novel experi- 
ence." So it did, from nine o'clock, when we 
left industrious and industrial Strassburg (popula- 
tion 167,000) and its fine Cathedral (twelfth to 
fifteenth century) with its tower 462 feet high, and 
its good public buildings, until 11.30, when we 
reached our hotel in Baden, that is, in Baden- 
Baden. Soon after leaving Strassburg the full 
moon rose. We had a boy pilot us through town 
and start us on our country route which abounded 
with offshoots. In the fog which soon arose it 
was difficult to make out the sign-posts; but we 
were diverted only once. The billowing mists, 
low to the ground in the distance, took strange 
shapes and dull iridescent colours from the moon- 
beams, and the clouds and moon played hide-and- 
seek very often. This was a Saturday night too, 
so that lights and laughter and song came to us 
from many an inn ; a few churches were lit up for 
services, whose singingwe heard, and oh ! how many 
loving Gretchens and Hans our lights picked up as 
we rushed along. The couples continued their de- 
cent caressing and they and we went on our ways 



2o6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

rejoicing. The lights of Baden-Baden were a 
welcome sight as we came on them through the 
thickening fog and then we ran the gamut of the 
hotels. Full, full, full, was the cry until we were 
received at a clean hotel, the Baren Hof, some 
fifteen minutes' walking distance from the centre 
of the town. 

Sunday, August 21, 1910. Late breakfast. 
Relaxed, Zeppelin dirigible passed over our 
hotel, but was no rarity to the natives, so we were 
not warned of the sight. The next year, however, 
I saw one of them in motion. To-day they 
are dropping bombs (with how much effect?) 
in this monstrous European war. We walked 
through the beautiful, matured, and bench-lined 
gardens, and along lawns and tree-lined avenues 
that border the little river Oos, which brightly 
glistened on its way through the pleasure grounds, 
and by hotels and bathing establishments, through 
the town. Hotel Stephanie gave us a very good 
lunch, but the Berncastler Doctor of 1901, that 
delectable wine which should have lived up to its 
character and proved fine, was a poor specimen. 
The races were on, so we could secure no convey- 
ance to drive about. Public gambling tables had 




O 

C 
03 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 207 



been abolished at Baden-Baden, so it was not 
so lively as in former years, they say; but a 
crowded, jolly place it seemed to be, though not 
in a hectic way. After resting, we had supper 
at our hotel on fresh- caught trout and then taking 
the trolley went to the Kur-Haus, where we 
encountered several friends, and later saw some 
very elaborate fireworks which the dense crowd 
seemed to highly appreciate. But these fire- 
works were as nothing compared to the magnifi- 
cence of a thunder-storm that burst that night 
over our hotel. The thunder rolled most wonder- 
fully among the hills. I thought I counted twenty 
reverberations of one prodigious clap. 

The Grand Duchy of Baden is in area 5819 
square miles, has a population of 2,142,833, of 
whom about five eighths are Roman Catholics, 
and more than three eighths Protestants. Until 
1 77 1 Baden was a Margraviate divided into two 
or more parts; it was then united, and in 1830 its 
ruler took the title of Elector and in 1806, of 
Grand Duke. The Grand Duke is the executive 
head of the Duchy. The Legislature is divided 
into an Upper Chamber and a Second Chamber. 
The Upper Chamber consists of the princes of 



2o8 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

the reigning family, the heads of the mediatized 
families, the Roman Catholic archbishop, the 
prelate of the Protestant Church; elected for four 
years are eight members of the territorial nobility, 
one representative for each of the two universities 
and one for the technical high school, three for the 
Chamber of Commerce, one for the Chamber of 
Trades; two Oberbiirgermeisters of the towns 
subject to the municipal law, and one Burger- 
meister of one of the other towns (of more than 
3000 inhabitants), one member of the District 
Councils, and up to eight appointees, for four 
years, of the Grand Dulce, of whom two are high 
legal functionaries appointed during their term 
of office. 

The Second Chamber is composed of 73 repre- 
sentatives at least thirty years old, 24 elected by 
towns, and 49 by rural districts for four years. 
Every citizen twenty-five years old, not convicted 
of crime nor receiving parish relief, has a vote. 
There must be a session of the Chambers at 
least once every two years. 

More than half of the country is cultivated, and 
about two fifths of it is in forest of which some 
250,000 acres belong to the State. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 209 



Mannheim (population 206,000) is the principal 
manufacturing town. There were 70 strikes and 
II lock-outs in 19 12, of which 18 strikes were 
fully, and 31 partially, successful; and one lockout 
effective and 9 partially so. 

Karlsruhe (population 134,313) is the seat of 
government. Moderately high mountains tra- 
verse Baden from north-east to south-west and add 
their quota of rainfall to the Rhine which flows 
between their slopes. Baden is for the most part 
up to date, but its roads might easily be better. 



Monday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 22, 1910 9. IS Baden Stuttgart 80 2.40 Lunch at 

3.40 Stuttgart Memmingen 139 9.30 Hotel Royal, 

219 II. IS Dinner at 

Bayerischer 
Hof. Clean. 
Poor food. 



At 9.15 we left pleasant, polished Baden- 
Baden (there is another Baden, not in Baden), in 
its lovely narrow valley, filled so often with warm 
damp air. We passed through Esslingen (popula- 
tion 30,000), Wurtemberg, where there was once a 
Napoleonic battle. Now the town has great 
engineering works, including the huge Dannler 
Automobile Works, an old ruined castle, and a 
14 



210 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

reputation for making fine sparkling Neckar wine 
from the neighbouring vineyards. Through occa- 
sional showers we went on to Stuttgart (population 
260,000) on the Neckar River where we lunched 
well at H6tel Royal. The rain stopping, we 
viewed in passing the public squares and buildings, 
especially the big building with pillared arcades 
lined with shops, along the chief square. A 
prosperous region this, to produce such towns as 
Stuttgart and Strassburg, and such fine country- 
sides as we had been seeing. The ancient buildings 
in Stuttgart are very striking in appearance and 
the city possesses all the modern facilities. It is a 
great manufacturing centre. I secured a sample 
of its wares in the shape of a half-dozen pairs of 
thin black socks, of which I stood in need. Durable 
they proved to be, but so loosely woven at the top 
as to flop down too easily. Many German manu- 
factures are excellent; others break down in 
some such cheap way as did my socks. At 
3.40 we went on through that part of Wurtem- 
berg known as Swabia. Much of it was very wild 
and characteristic. This region is the home of the 
HohenzoUerns and the Dukes of Teck, one of 
the latter of whom married an English princess, 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 211 

Mary Adelaide, a relative of Queen Victoria 
of England. 

Wurtemberg, a kingdom since 1805, became a 
Constitutional Monarchy in 1819. It contains 
7534 square miles, of which 64 per cent, is culti- 
vated, and 31 per cent, is in forests. Its popula- 
tion of about 2,500,000 is for the most part best 
described by the Shakespearian word "bucolical, " 
though Stuttgart's population of 286,000 is pro- 
gressive and very notable, and nearly a million 
Wurtembergers are industrial workers. Wurtem- 
berg is governed by a bicameral body called 
together at least every two years. The First 
Chamber comprises: (i.) The royal princes; (2) 
the heads of country families to whose possessions 
a vote in the imperial or provincial diet was 
formerly attached; also the heads of two other 
families elected constitutionally; (3) up to six 
appointees of the King; (4) eight members of 
knightly rank; (5) six ecclesiastical dignitaries; 

(6) a representative of the University of Tubingen, 
and one of the Technical High School of Stuttgart ; 

(7) two representatives of commerce and industry, 
two of agriculture, and one of handicrafts. The 
Second Chamber consists of : (i.) A deputy from 



212 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

each of its sixty-four districts ; (2) six from Stutt- 
gart, and one from each of six other towns; (3) 
nine from the Neckar and Jagst circle, eight from 
the Black Forest and Danube circles. All depu- 
ties are chosen for six years and must be at least 
thirty years old. For administrative purposes 
the country is divided into 4 circles, 64 districts, 
and 1898 communes. Education is compulsory, 
and there is at least one public school in each 
commune. Wurtemberg has virtually every 
variety of school, including at Stuttgart the 
fine Technical High School, and the Veterinary 
High School and the Agricultural High School 
at Hohenheim, topping off with the ancient Uni- 
versity of Frieburg. Wurtemberg officialdom 
claims that every one of their citizens older than 
ten years of age can read and write. About three 
fourths of the population is Protestant and nearly 
all the remainder Roman Catholic. The country 
is well watered, thanks to the Black Forest's 
conservation of water along the highlands of 
Wurtemberg. Two remarkable features of govern- 
ment in Wurtemberg are : ( i .) The Committee of 
Twelve, consisting of the presidents of each 
Chamber and two members of the Upper, and 



TO AND FROM ODER-AMMERGAU 213 



eight of the Lower House, who represent the two 
Chambers when they are not convened; (2) a 
special Court of Justice, the appointed guardian of 
the Constitution, consisting of a president and 
twelve members, six of whom, together with the 
president, are nominated by the King, and six are 
elected by the combined Chambers. Slow but 
sure is Wurtemberg. 

Ancient Ulm (population 55,000) situated on the 
Danube which separates it from Bavaria, we found 
to be in festival array and her hotels overcrowded, 
as on August 24th and 25th, the centenary of its 
joining Wurtemberg was to be celebrated. It is a 
German fortress, and a garrison of 7500 soldiers 
is stationed there. Ulm was a free imperial 
city in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
Was there not a Napoleonic victory hereabouts — 
the battle of Ulm? At any rate, the city was well 
prepared for one. 

The inhabitants seemed very straightforward 
and unsophisticated. They crowded around the 
machine and naively asked questions and then 
told us how to reach Memmingen, our objective 
point for the night. We soon started and found 
the roads poor from the European standpoint. 



214 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Indeed, the worst roads ever encountered in our 
trip were in Wurtemberg. Many of them were 
very narrow, made merely of dirt and pretty well 
supplied with holes. It is fifty kilometres to 
Memmingen, said our friendly advisers. You go 
thus and so and then cross the bridge and are in 
Bavaria, etc. The clever-looking porter of the 
chief hotel told us the same. Ah! the good 
German beer! and festival times! We followed 
instructions. We boggled about long and pain- 
fully before we got out of town; then faithfully 
trying to go through one of the forts, were turned 
back, and when fairly off from Ulm we had to 
run, according to our speedometer, that had never 
taken a drink in its life, fifty miles. 

The Bayerisher Hof, Memmingen, which via 
Kempten we gladly reached at 9.30, is a mediseval, 
picturesquely situated town of 20,000 inhabitants 
and many quaint old houses. It afforded us a poor 
and plentiful supper in its only eating room, while 
some "clubbable" men combined card-playing 
and smoking there. Our rooms were simple and 
clean. From my window I looked up and down 
the opposite side of the street and slantingly 
across some squares at a remarkably varied and 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 215 

very characteristic skyline of fronts, roofs, and 
chimneys, and I was impressed with the fine 
electric lighting of Memmingen. 

Early next morning, I was aroused by a noise 
of heavy scraping that arose from the road three 
storeys below my wide-open window. The noise 
came nearer and grew emphatically louder. It 
would not let me sleep. Finally, I got up and 
looked out upon a large group of men in military 
working costume with only the officer bearing 
arms. The noise came from their marching as 
one man, flat-footed over the even surface of 
the sandy pavement. Their greyish-brown khaki 
suits, and their grave and military bearing were 
very convincing of their being a definite part of a 
carefully built fighting-machine. All the young 
men in the company were well set up. Some of 
the older men were somewhat relaxed. Behind 
them came one solitary soldier. Pushing a wheel- 
barrow, he walked in precisely the same stiff- 
legged sliding manner as his company companions. 

After breakfast we viewed the town. Its 
faggot market was notable and everything about 
the nice old town had character. It was a city 
of the empire till 1802, and yet has some of its 



21 6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

ancient surrounding wall. Its fine old mediaeval 
town hall, church, meeting-hall, and numerous 
private residences make it thoroughly well worth 
visiting. 

One of these houses is the Fugger Haus, in which 
General Wallenstein received his dismissal. Was 
that house the headquarters of the great merchant 
princes of that name who, through many genera- 
tions, grew comparatively as wealthy as any 
of our American families of several generations of 
great inherited wealth? One of them, late in the 
seventeenth century, built at Augsburg a walled 
settlement of fifty-three houses for rental to poor 
Roman Catholic families at the annual price of 
one dollar. Then change of name overtook the 
clan of Fugger. To-day, they are betitled; but 
are imperishably associated with great capacity, 
wealth, splendid and beautiful establishments, 
generous living, and unbounded beneficence. 
No wonder that so much of solid power and worth 
should have prolonged the family. They did not 
grow foolhardy in finance. Without mobilized 
reserve power and character and trained intelli- 
gence no human understanding is soundly ensured. 
We left this town with great regret that we could 



12.00 
1.30 

5-45 


4-50 


Lunch at 
Bayeris- 
cher Hof. 
Good. 
Dinner at 
Agence 
Lubin. 
Ordinary. 





TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 217 

not see it all more thoroughly. But we were to 
leave early, that we might see King Ludwig II.'s 
older palace Schwangau, and perhaps his new 
one, and get to Ober-Ammergau that night. 

Tuesday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 23, 1910 9.40 Memmingen Fussen 75 

" 1. 1 5 Piissen Schwangau 36 

" 3.30 Schwangau Ober-Ammer- 43 

gau 

154 



Starting at 9.40 we came to Kempten again, 
and in its long broad, chief street, while stopping 
to buy "benzine," that is, gasoline, one of us 
photographed two jolly, sooty, chimney-sweeps 
who were precisely like their representatives on 
the stage; and we treated a large band of happy 
children to a generous supply of cakes purchased 
at a little shop that looked much like the humble 
corner grocery in America which was in existence 
when we were boys and girls. Then through 
wonderfully beautiful rolling country affording 
profile views of the Bavarian Alps, or their reflec- 
tions in numerous lakes, stopping to closely 
examine a lovely old church on a small lake's mar- 
gin, we came to the partially walled town of Fussen 



2i8 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

(population, 4500). This was dominated by a 
fifteenth-century castle, erected by the Bishops 
of Augsburg, and restored by King Louis I. It 
is a suppressed Benedictine monastery (founded 
629) with an old church below it. 

At twelve o'clock we swept on towards Hohen- 
schwangau, most of the way through a handsome 
park to the village, above which on a high hill 
is the yellow stone castle. It belonged originally 
to the Guelph family; but in 1191, it became the 
property of the Dukes of Swabia, and in 1597 
passed to the Dulles of Bavaria. Sold by them 
in 1820, it was, in 1832, bought by King Maxi- 
milian II., then Crown Prince who, retaining and 
perfecting its fine old park, reconstructed the 
castle, and had its interior decorated with frescoes 
illustrating German history. The castle commands 
fine views of the plain, of Ludwig II.'s new Schwan- 
stein on an adjacent height, and of the swan lake to 
its rear. Throughout the castle are innumerable 
images of swans, big, little, and middle-sized, 
adapted to many purposes. They are reminders 
of the frequent residence here of the crazy Ludwig 
II., one of whose chief manias was his strange love 
of the mythical Lohengrin knight of the swan. 




Photo Franzl 



Mount Kofel and the Cross at Oberammergau 



TO AND FROM OBER-AM MERGAU 219 



Beyond the little valley, Ludwig 11. began in 
1869 the granite castle of new Schwanstein on the 
site of a very old castle. It is situated on the 
site of a precipitous rock. As automobiles were 
forbidden in the grounds, and as we could find no 
other conveyance, our ladies, fatigued by the five 
days' rush from Fontainebleau across France, 
Lorraine, Alsace, Baden, Wurtemberg, and 
Bavaria, decided to omit visiting the new castle 
and to proceed at once in the comfortable auto- 
mobile to Ober-Ammergau and rest, so as to be 
ready for the performance of the Passion Play 
on the morrow. "Very well, ladies, " my brother- 
in-law and I remarked. Motoring to the plain we 
enjoyed the fine mountain view back of the castles 
and at 3.30 left for Ober-Ammergau (population 
1650). 

Passing over some very steep hills, both up 
and down, we soon came into the valley of the 
swift gliding Ammer River. Soon to our right, 
on the north base of Kofel Mountain at whose 
feet nestles Ober-Ammergau, we saw against the 
skylight the gigantic group of the Crucifixion 
presented by Ludwig II. in 1875; then to our left 
was a little white ancient church ; then we ran into 



220 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

the crowded main street of the little town itself. 
"Yes," said Agence Lubin — through whose office 
in Fontainebleau we had bought rooms with 
comfortable sleeping quarters for the 23d and 
24th of August and good seats for the performance 
of the 24th and meal tickets — "Yes, the accommo- 
dations are all ready for you. Your residence will 
be at 284 Dibler Strasse with Benedict Glochel, 
and you will lunch and dine at the restaurant in 
this building at such and such an hour and break- 
fast at your lodging." To all of which we agreed. 
As we walked to our lodging, we noted the moun- 
tains and valleys surrounding the town. The 
many shop windows were crowded with wood or 
wax carvings of the crucified Christ, of Christ in 
the manger, of the Virgin and Child, and with 
photographs of the various actors and scenes in the 
Passio?i Play, secular views of the village and the 
adjacent country, curios, Tyrolean caps, etc., all 
of which were being eagerly sought by the crowd 
of some five or six thousand visitors who had 
come, like ourselves, to see the performance by 
peasants of this greatest religious play. It is 
performed each ten years from about mid-May 
to the end of September, every Sunday, and on 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 221 

some festivals, and from mid- July to mid-Septem- 
ber on Wednesdays, from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m., with 
an interval from twelve till two o'clock. If 
necessary to accommodate visitors, an extra 
performance is given on Thursdays. 

We found kindly and good Herr Glochel, a 
small, earnest, sallow, dark-haired man of about 
fifty-five, with a scant black beard, and his wife, 
at home in their square two-storey house. They 
took us to our rooms, beautifully clean, with 
polished floors, shell ornaments, and many pictures 
in colour or line or carving of Jesus Christ. The 
respectful intimacy of such use of His blessed 
personality was very sobering to me. Having 
shown us all the second storey of the house, upon 
noting our interest in their residence, they pointed 
out a broad space leading from a certain door 
to the lower storey of the rear of the house. 
' ' There is the stable. In winter we leave the door 
open that the heat from the animals may warm 
this our bedroom." The bedroom was long and 
narrow and high pitched. "Yes, it is very cold 
here all winter. Generally, our house is surrounded 
by snow to the height of six feet. Yes Benedict 
is in the Passion Play. He was in it ten years ago. 



222 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

He takes the part of James the Less, as did his 
father before him." So we were kindly made to 
feel at home. 

We began to dine at "Agence Lubin" at seven, 
precisely as had been decreed, and poorly enough 
we dined for our sins; but we did not think of 
complaining to "Agence Lubin." We ended on 
time, with all the pilgrims dining there, and then 
strolled through the streets, watched the restless 
crowd, and listened to a very poor band. They 
recalled to me a joke that an old college mate of 
mine would keep repeating whenever he was near 
a wandering brass band, just about to blow their 
first notes. "Gentlemen of the Band," he 
would say softly, so as to avoid getting into 
trouble with the bellows-cheeked performers, — 
"Gentlemen of the Band, prepare to blow out 
your brains." Soon we retired to our lodging. 
"No, thank you, Frau Glochel, do not call us for 
the early service" (at the near-by village church, 
where all the performers in the Passio7i Play 
commence), "but will you please call us at 6.30. 
Yes, we would like coffee and jam, and an ome- 
lette." Before retiring, we took one more look 
at the Bengal light illuminations which were 



TO AND FROM OBER-AM MERGAU 223 



gleaming from many a point on Kofel Mountain, 
and which earher we had watched from the 
centre of the village, especially as it lit up the 
great Passion group on Kofel. Theatrical that 
last, and the first a poor substitute for the old- 
time bonfires of wood. These fires are "the 
fires of St. Louis," named after the fire of burning 
bitumen flung on his army by the Turks at the 
lost battle of Mansurah, in Egypt, 1249. 

August 24th. The clanging of harsh bells 
aroused us early next morning. From the belfry 
of the church they were calling the players. Now 
for those players to commune seemed to me in 
keeping with the long years of study and clean 
living required of them by the village authorities 
before they were eligible; but I shrank from 
attending simply to gaze at them, and I did not 
wish to commune, and much of the service in 
German would have been lost on me. The day 
was bright with clear mountain air and sunshine. 
We were thankful and descended to our "conti- 
nental breakfast," plus the omelette, so as to be 
fortified for a trying four-hour session. "The 
bread, the mountain honey, the coffee, were 
good, and so was the butter," said my wife; 



224 A40T0RING IN EUROPE 

"but oh! that heavy, elastic omelette which had 
been fried on one side and then on the other in 
much fat and then powdered with sugar." What 
should we do in order not to hurt the feelings of 
our kind hosts! We would consume virtually all 
the rest of the breakfast, praise all of it as was 
its due, and under suggestion of repletion present 
the omelette with a few words as kind as cir- 
cumstances permitted to Benedict, relying on 
his presumably strong peasant constitution to 
save him from an illness. Perhaps we did wrong. 
Certainly his complexion looked as though he had 
eaten many such omelettes, and indicated a hard 
worked liver. But we were not sure that he 
would eat the omelette. It was a fine one to 
save for a person for whose life you felt no personal 
responsibility, A little later seeing Benedict 
tranquilly preparing to go to the village, we were 
satisfied he had omitted his omelette; but we 
feared for his wife who staid at home. 

The five-minute-to-eight gun summoned all to 
the theatre which had been built in 1900. The 
sun had warmed the air considerably by eight 
o'clock, when the 4200 spectators had climbed 
up the ten stairways, and were seated on the fairly 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 225 

comfortable stationary chairs, in the large steep- 
pitched theatre whose front third, including the 
stage, was open to the sky. We were about to 
witness the greatest of the two survivals of the 
many miracle plays designed for religious instruc- 
tion and so popular in the Middle Ages. The 
second great survivor is at Brexlegg in the Austrian 
Tyrol. The origin of this Ober-Ammergau per- 
formance is said to be the successful service of a 
play setting forth the life, death, and mediation 
of Christ when offered as an exorcism of the plague 
which was devastating their village. The plague 
was thus stopped. Keeping the vow of their fore- 
fathers the villagers at first yearly, till 1634, then 
every ten years since with an extra performance in 
1 8 15 to celebrate Napoleon's downfall, and in 
1 87 1, in place of the performance of 1870, omitted 
because of the Franco-Prussian War, have rever- 
ently repeated the play. From 1740 it grew less of 
an event till 1800, when a most excellent version 
of the play was adopted and between 1840 and 
1850 the present one was finally chosen. 

A permanent theatre, costumes made by great 
costumers of the cities, a very large, thoroughly 
drilled band; over-fiowing coffers, for seats sell 

IS 



226 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

from $1 to $2.50 a piece; enormous patronage 
and the general disillusionments of this twentieth 
century are mighty influences against the char- 
acteristic naivete and reverence of the villagers; 
but to us they appeared devout. The spectators 
also were hushed and sober. It seemed to me 
that what I was about to see would necessarily 
be at variance with my conception of that greatest 
epic of the universe, wherein the blessed Creator of 
everything and all men sacrificed Himself for me 
and all my fellow-sinners. Through thought and 
meditation upon His tender and humble, yet 
unresistible life on earth, an unending series of 
pictures of Him had impressed themselves upon my 
consciousness (have they not in the mind of every 
Christian?), and the inexpressible glory of His 
perfect life and sacrifice had drawn out for me 
the grandest poem that my intellect could conceive. 
His own words had told to me the story of His 
perfect character and love and sacrifice, and the 
chosen comrades of his pilgrimage had added their 
recital of His walk on earth. Now I felt that I 
was about to have my reverential conception 
replaced by the interpretation of some six hundred 
peasants of the earth drama of His life. I feared 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 227 

that the clear pictures set in my imagination 
would be tarnished as the lily or the rose is injured 
by the touch of the human hand. 

But the stage curtain is pulled aside. The 
great orchestra begins, eighteen of the strong, 
gown-clad chorus of thirty-seven, led by the pro- 
loguer, clad in long flowing gown, with crown and 
staff, march in from one wing, while the other nine- 
teen, led by the chief singer, similarly attired, 
march from the other wing. From right to left 
of the stage I see the house of Annas, the high 
priest; then a street in the middle of the stage, the 
site for the central tableau; then a street again; 
then the house of Pilate, all suitably indicated 
by accurate scenery. The great central tableaux 
following each other in rapid succession were 
described by the chorus ; and chief actors with 
their hundreds of assistants, sometimes five 
hundred or more, made successful representations 
of the very animated populace. During the 
eight hours' strain the complete story of the life 
of our Lord on earth was enacted. It never 
rose above reverent stage play to me; but that 
stage play was a devotional though always some- 
what clumsy touching of sacred things. For one 



228 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

who has never loved Christ with his whole heart 
or who is very dull of imagination, or is largely 
ignorant of the surpassingly beautiful details of His 
sacrificial life on earth, it may be well to see this 
Passion Play; otherwise, one is happier to omit it. 
As to the skill of the actors: I find this in my 
note-book : 

Judas the best actor: mob the best playing. The 
Christus best when silent; sometimes very stagey 
in movement, and often in voice; of rather heavy 
German build and bearing and much stooped from 
his work as a potter; very reverent, but conscious of 
his prominence. Saw him talking with his guests 
at his door on the eve of the play and afterward 
watering his flowers on his porch. He regularly takes 
boarders. The play all well intended, but now very 
much modernized in manner, in costuming, theatre, 
etc. A wonderful performance for peasants and a 
source to them of great income (which nearly all goes 
to improve the town), and of spiritual standardizing. 
To me, it was stagey, not true; tragic in parts and a 
travesty, though an honest one, for the most part. 
It was a delight to me that the Christus lacked the 
tender spirituality of body and bearing and voice 
and manner of the dear Lord of life. Tired from the 
physical and mental tension of the day, we sat quietly 
in the village square that evening and again watched 
the crowds, the Bengal lights on Kofel, and the stars 
in the firmament of heaven. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 229 

Here is another statement of my view of the 
Passion Play: 

OBER-AMMERGAU 

All day as we approached the high and cleanly living 

town of Ober-Ammergau 
The white sunshine of August beat upon us — all day 

long- 
Till we drew nigh to cleanly living Ober-Ammergau 
Which was intent to give its piteous Passion Play 

next day : 
Then clouds that blent with all the sadness of that 

play obscured the sky. 
The morrow dawned, bells called the players to pray 

and to commune at Church; 
A cannon shot summoned a mighty audience to seats 

in the theatre 
Andthenbeganthe first four hour half of the dismal play. 
All honest in reverential meaning was it and soundly 

given 
But oh! the dulling substitute of all those presen- 
tations 
For the scenes each educated Christian heart and mind 
Had always pictured. For in place of the supremest 

poetry 
That earth affords, that clings about and clothes our 

God on earth, 
There was the bathos of some humdrum peasant in 

His place ; 
It pulled me down from radiant visions all lit by dreams 

of Him. 



230 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Thursday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and 

at metres at time Remarks 

Aug. 25, 1910 9.4s Ober-Am- Sebaris- 125 1.20 Lunch at Se- 

mergau chofen barischer Hof. 

" 2.20 Sebaris- Neuhausen 120 8.45 Dinner at H6- 

chofen tel Bellevue 

at Neuhausen. 

24s 10 Good enough. 



Leaving Ober-Ammergau at 945 we passed near 
Fussen, saw again Hohenschwangau and, being 
yet in the beautiful highlands of Bavaria, stopped 
at remotely situated Sebarischofen for lunch. 
Evidently this is an establishment of the govern- 
ment put here as a matter of convenience in army 
manoeuvres; for it is remote, large, and while 
available it is evidently seldom used. A rough 
lunch they gave us. As we waited for it we secured 
permission to play a large graphophone in the 
eating-smoking-drinking room. I thought the 
music very enjoyable to all parties; but what 
sound was that! One of the ladies of our party 
was sobbing out, "Oh! I can't bear it." We 
stopped the music and she sought the outdoor 
breezes. Later, she said her little boy played 
that air on his graphophone and — he was in 
America. Our party was beginning to have the 
"no-place-like-home" consciousness that is sure to 
come as you near the end of an outing. On then 



TO /IND FROM 0BER-AMh4ERGAU 231 

towards the west we went with a vim. The 
Kingdom of Bavaria would be soon behind us. 
Following is a summary I compiled concerning it. 
Bavaria contains 30,346 square miles, of which 
about one half is under cultivation, one sixth 
under grass, and one third under forests. It 
has a population of nearly 7,000,000, and since the 
twelfth century it has been ruled over by the 
famous family of Wittlesbach, whose chief bore 
the title of Elector from the Thirty Years' War 
until 1805, when Napoleon created Bavaria a 
kingdom. The reigning King Ludwig III. is 
sole executive, but his Ministers are responsible 
for all his acts. The Legislature comprises the 
King and an Upper and Lower House of Parlia- 
ment. The Upper House — "Counsellors of the 
Realm" — now consists of sixteen royal princes, 
two crown dignitaries, the two archbishops, the 
heads of sixteen mediatized houses, and thirty 
hereditary noblemen, a Roman Catholic Bishop, 
the President of the Protestant Consistory, and 
life members appointed by the Crown in numbers 
not exceeding one third of the hereditary Counsel- 
lors. The Lower House — the Deputies — numbers 
163, — one to about 38,000, inhabitants — and its 



232 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

members are elected for six years. The suffrage 
is granted to every citizen of twenty-five or more 
years who has paid a direct tax for at least a year. 
Bavaria has her own army and contributes 
three army corps, designated separately as 1st, 
2d, and 3d Bavarian Army Corps, to the 
German Army, and controls her fortresses in 
time of peace. Her soldiers enjoy a somewhat 
specialized uniform, and constitute an army of 
72,000 men in time of peace. The upper half of 
the country, consisting of upper and lower Bavaria 
proper and the oft-desolated upper and lower 
Palatinate, is level and is drained chiefly by the 
Danube, while the lower half is drained chiefly 
by the Rhine. It consists of upper and lower 
Franconia and rises gradually to the highlands 
and northeast of them into Swabia and its Alps 
whence came the ancestral Hapsburg to the 
Austrian throne, and the ancestral Hohenzollern 
via the Burgrafship of ^Nuremburg to the Kingship 
of Prussia and the Emperorship of Modern 
Germany. When I enumerate the chief cities of 
Bavaria and their populations — Munich (596,000) ; 
Nuremberg (333,000) ; Augsburg (102,000) ; Wurz- 
burg (84,000); Ludwigshafen on the Rhine 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 233 

(83,000); Furth (66,000); Kaiserlantern (54,000); 
Ratisbon (52,000); and Bamberg (48,000) — the 
steady importance of Bavaria in art, religion, 
warfare, and manufacturing, which last notably 
includes beers and wines, is clearly intimated. 
Of its inhabitants some five million are Roman 
Catholics, about two million Protestants, and 
55,000 Jews. Strong is Bavaria. Though a 
loyal member of the Empire of Germany she 
yet retains her unPrussianized individuality. 

In a short time we were among hills on the 
gradually descending slope leading to the south- 
eastern end of Lake Constance which lies between 
Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, and 
Switzerland. It is a fine body of water, fed 
chiefly by the Rhine, and is 40 miles long, 7^ 
miles broad; at the deepest point it is 826 feet, 
and it covers 208 square miles. To the south of 
it are wooded hills, and to the south-east snow- 
capped mountains can be seen in clear weather. 
Along its southern shore ran the great Roman 
way into middle Germany. Then its shores were 
wilder. To-day they are thickly populated and 
well subdued. Our first view of it was delightful. 
It literally flashed on us as we turned the bend 



234 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

of a steep road. There were its bluish waters 
sparkHng in the sunshine and a town on an island 
355 yards from shore. 

It was Lindau, for which we had been running. 
This is a town of 6700 inhabitants, once a free 
imperial town and fortress, now handsomely 
ornamented and used as a summer resort. We 
took a run around it and then continued on an 
excellent road which hugs the north-east side of 
the lake, via Meersburg. There we met a skittish 
horse driven by a badly scared man. The man 
descended to hold the horse's head. We stopped. 
The horse broke the carriage shaft. We offered 
assistance. We received no reply but a motion 
to move on with the machine, and we did so. 
That was the only horse frightened by our machine 
during the whole trip. 

At Oberlinden we had a splendid view of the 
lake from the foot of a monument surmounted by a 
bust of Emperor William I. Soon we left Wurtem- 
berg at Thaulangen to cut across a little piece of 
Switzerland. 

Pursuing my plan of making a summary of 
each country visited by us in the summer of 19 10, 
I here insert my summary of Switzerland. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 235 

Switzerland, beginning with August i, 1291, 
when the men of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and 
Lower Unterwalden, formed a defensive league 
against their overlord Austria, grew by 181 5, 
into her present 22 cantons comprising the 
Swiss Republic, with an area of 15,796 
square miles and a population of about 3,750,000. 
Her perpetual neutrality and the inviolability 
of her territory are guaranteed by most of the 
great Powers of Europe. A general election occurs 
every three years, and every citizen who is twenty 
years old or more can vote, and any non-clerical 
citizen may be elected a deputy in the National 
Parliament. That Parliament consists of a State 
Council of forty-four members, two from each of 
the twenty-two cantons; or one from each half- 
canton, in the case of those cantons which are 
divided into two parts: Basle, divided into 
Stadt and Land; Appenzell, divided into Ausser 
Rhoden and Inner Rhoden, and Unterwald, 
divided into Obwald and Nidwald. Each canton 
pays its deputies as it pleases; the average is 
about four dollars a day; and elects them how it 
likes and for as long as it likes. The National 
Council consists of 167 Representatives of the 



236 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Swiss people chosen in direct election, one for 
every 20,000 souls. They are paid from Federal 
funds about four dollars per diem. 

Legislative action may be initiated popularly, 
and may be similarly vetoed. When a signed 
petition demanding revision or annulment of a 
measure is presented by 30,000 citizens, or is 
demanded by eight cantons, the law in question 
must be submitted to a national vote. A majority 
of both people and cantons are then requisite to 
decide. This referendum is often used. Na- 
tionally the initiative and referendum have been 
little overused in Switzerland, but according to a 
very competent Swiss professor of international 
authority with whom I discussed this subject, in 
some of the larger towns and in the more industrial 
cantons they have been too rashly availed of, so 
that there a large number of signatures should 
be demanded. 

The chief executive authority in Switzerland 
is lodged in a Federal Council of seven elected 
by the two Chambers, that is by the Federal 
Assembly from that Federal Assembly. Only this 
Council introduces legislative measures. They may 
debate them but do not vote. The President and 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 237 

Vice-President of the Federal Council are the first 
Magistrates of the Confederation and are chosen 
by joint session of the Federal Assembly to serve 
for a year beginning January ist and then are 
ineligible for re-election for one year. Ordinarily 
the Vice-President is elected to the presidency. 
Each one of the Council is head of an administra- 
tive department, as Foreign Affairs, Interior, 
Justice and Police, Military, Finance and Cus- 
toms, Agriculture and Industry, and Ports and 
Railroads. The City of Berne is the seat of the 
Federal Council and of the central administrative 
authorities. 

The unmeasured water-power of Switzerland 
applied to manufacturing of staples and industrial 
commodities whose carriage is not too handicap- 
ping to such cheap power guarantees a fortune to 
any competent manufacturer. 

The local government of Switzerland is par- 
ticularly interesting. As Freeman points out in 
his English Constitution, here alone is preserved 
the ancient Anglo-Saxon lawmaking directly by 
an assembled people. This is yet the case in 
Appenzell, Glarus, Unterwald, and Uri; but in all 
the larger cantons an intermediate body chosen 



238 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

by universal suffrage exercises all the powers of 
the electorate, but in all of them except Freiburg 
the referendum has place. Public office is a 
public trust in Switzerland, and small is the pay 
of the representative. 

German is spoken in fifteen of the cantons, 
French in six, Italian in two, and Roumansch 
and Italian together in one. Approximately the 
following numbers speak the respective languages : 
2,600,000 German; 800,000 French; 300,000 Ital- 
ian; 40,000 Roumansch. Nearly 600,000 foreign- 
ers reside in Switzerland. 

There are many wonderful things in nature, 
government, etc., in Switzerland, but to me the 
most remarkable is that so few of the Switzers, 
thrifty, hardworking, practical, true- thinking, and 
money-loving, have availed themselves of their 
peculiarly favourable opportunities to manufac- 
ture. Water-power and long deliverance from field 
work should have induced more than the actual 
325,000 of them to undertake manufacturing. 
All the products from silk seem to me most 
promising. The bulk of the raw and perfected 
silk is small so that the freight factor is brought 
to a minimum. 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 239 

Religion is unconstrained in Switzerland except 
that no clergyman can become a lawmaker, nor 
can the Order of the Jesuits or any of its affiliated 
orders be received in Switzerland. Approximately 
these are the religious affiliations: Protestants, 
2,100,000; Roman Catholics, 1,600,000; Jews, 
20,000. There is a Protestant majority in twelve 
cantons and a Roman Catholic majority in ten. 

Education is compulsory and in the lower grades 
is free. In Protestant cantons the proportion 
of school-attending children to the whole popula- 
tion is as one to five; in half Protestant, half 
Roman Catholic one to seven, and in Roman 
Catholic one to nine. Switzerland has seven 
universities, all of which are modelled after the 
German form and are governed by a rector 
and a senate, and divided into four schools: 
theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and medicine. 
The Swiss mind has, latterly, been most pre-emi- 
nent in jurisprudence, though markedly capable 
in medicine, and it is lacking in the fine arts. 
Swiss painting is pitiable; sculpture has truer 
aspirations, though little strength; and poetry 
and romantic prose are conspicuous by their 
absence, for there are but few writers and those 



240 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

mostly near the German borderland. In dis- 
quisitions on government, law, science, and re- 
ligion, and in some few philosophical essays, a 
few biographies, and autobiographies are to be 
found the promise of that abundant Swiss litera- 
ture which is to be expected when the increasing 
spread of wealth shall work its usual charm by 
granting leisure and easy monetary rewards. 
Even then there will be lacking the glorious 
stimulus of splendid national expansion and 
triumph which are among the few fine fruits of 
the average war. 

The Swiss Social Insurance against illness and 
accident is notably successful, and is open to 
resident foreigners. Frugality marks the effect- 
ive national finances. The national militiamen 
guarding the few fortresses at St. Gothard Pass 
in the south, and at Martigny and St. Maurice 
in the Rhone Valley to the west, and knowing 
how to make effective the mountains and their 
passes are the country's efficient defenders. Each 
able-bodied Switzer is liable to service with the 
Colours from his seventeenth to his forty-eighth 
year ; but actual service begins with the twentieth 
year. In the Infantry the first twelve years are 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMM ER.GAU 241 



spent in the first line of defence, the next eight 
in the second, the remaining eight in the third. 
The cavalry service requires eleven years in the 
first line of defence and twelve in the second. 
An unarmed third line comprises all other males 
between twenty and fifty years of age. The 
initial Swiss military training is through recruit 
schools lasting for the different divisions as 
follows: Infantry, engineers, and foot artillery, 
65 days; field artillery, 75 days, and cavalry, 90 
days. Subsequent trainings last for 11 days 
annually. Switzerland can mobilize 200,000 
combatants, and 60,000 home guards. 

The soil is very equally divided among the 
population. There are some 300,000 peasant 
proprietors. Of the total area, some 28 per cent, 
is unproductive, 35 per cent, is in grass, 29 per 
cent, in forest, 19 per cent, in fruit, and 16 per 
cent, in crops and gardens. Having to buy most 
of their food-crops the Swiss are adding to their 
chiefly textile industrial exports, including salt 
and cement, by developing their great national and 
private forests which are principally coniferous. 
Railroads and other public facilities are owned 
by the State and are managed with crude efficiency. 



16 



242 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

This is a successful land of a people for the most 
part walled in to a life of simplicity among grand 
mountains, beautiful lakes, in a rigorous climate. 
At the border of Switzeriand we were required 
to deposit 260 francs in gold as security against 
any damage the machine might do in Switzeriand. 
Thus the Swiss drew interest on our money and 
could impound for any injuries laid to our doors. 
During that incident's negotiations we talked with 
some bright little Swiss children and gave them 
cakes. They waved us a jolly good-bye. Soon 
we came to Ludwigshafen and passed through 
Schaffhausen ; by 8.45 reached Neuhausen, and 
stopped at H6tel Bellevue and enjoyed a splendid 
view of its lovely falls from our room and its 
balcony on the third floor. The falls were elec- 
trically illuminated with 'blue, white, and red. 
The sign to turn on the electricity was the firing 
of a rocket from the Sweitzer House and an 
answering rocket, but all this followed the playing 
of a searchlight on the falls which are broad, and 
beautiful, and of greenish colour, but not very 
high. The country was open and sloping up to 
the northward where woods were to be seen. 
The successive lights of evening, of electricity, 



TO AND FROM ODER-AMMERGAU 243 

and later of the half-moon were charming on the 
leaping, foaming water, the landscape to the 
north, and the old bridge near the falls. 

•Friday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

Aug. 26, 1910 9-40 Neuhausen Bale 140 1.40 Lunch at H6tel 

2.25 Bale Vesoul 124 8.4s de Bale, Bale. 

Dinner at H6- 

264 10.20 tel Terminus 

et de I'Europe. 

At 9.40 we left for Bale (Basel) which we 
reached at 1.40, after running through very trim 
country. Here at the best hotel on the chief public 
square we lunched well. All the town was in 
festival to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of 
St. Jacque, near Bale, August 26, 1444, between 
the Swiss, and a French army commanded by the 
Dauphin Louis, afterwards Louis XL of France. 
School children were selling badges appropriate 
to the day and we secured some souvenirs. Here 
I recovered at the Custom House 285 marks that 
I had deposited at the German Custom House, 
when crossing into Germany. We came to the 
French border at Belfort which is so heavily for- 
tified that the town is very gloomy. Just before 
entering the town, we received back the 260 
francs in gold which we had deposited at 



244 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Thaulangen ; we got our licence to pass into France 
duly O. K'd and helped a Boston maiden, travelling 
with her "Ma," get her automobile licence 
O. K'd too. Her chauffeur could not manage 
the necessary French. 

Belfort (population now 34,000, but in 1890, 
only 8400), is a first-class fortress, commanding 
the passage between the Jura and Vosges Moun- 
tains. It was founded in the eleventh century. 
Both in 1 8 14 and in 1870 Belfort successfully 
resisted sieges against it respectively by the allies 
and Germans. An imposing citadel rises above 
the town on the summit of a rock 220 feet high. 
In front of it is the Lion of Belfort, 36 feet high 
and 72 feet long, carved in red sandstone, to 
commemorate the defence of 1870. Thiers saved 
Belfort to France, by begging it from Bismarck 
as necessary to his (Thiers's) prestige if he, as 
leader, was to restore order in France. 

We concluded our day by a long run which 
took us to Vesoul (population 10,000), where we 
spent the night at Hotel de I'Europe. It is a 
dry, withered-up-looking town; but has some fine 
old buildings, a modern museum, a few modem 
monuments, and small pleasure grounds. Not 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 245 

very long before entering Vesoul we passed a 
monument in the shape of a gigantic sabot carved 
from the rock of the country and standing alone 
on a high base. We have not been able to properly 
associate it. Evidently, it commemorates some 
triumph of a peasant party. 



Saturday 


Started 


Prom 


To 


Kilo. 


Arrivec 




at 






metres 


at 


Aug. 27, 1910 


9-4S 


Vesoul 


Chaumont 


113 


LIS 




2.IS 


Chaumont 


Bar-sur- 
Seine 


40 


7-30 




8.4s 


Bar-sur- 
Seine 


Paris 


230 


12.15 



Lunch at 
H6tel de 
France et 
des Postes. 
Very good. 

Dinner at 

383 12. IS H6tel du 

Commerce. 
Indifferent. 
H 6 t e 1 
France et 
Choiseul. 



Off at 9.45, via Langres (population 10,000), 
a fortress of the first class, which is picturesquely 
situated on a high plateau and possesses several 
ancient churches; then Chaumont (population 
15,000) set high on a barren hill, and more old 
churches. This was the place where the allied 
sovereigns concluded a treaty in 18 14, reducing 
France to the limits of 78.900 square miles. It is 
in the Champagne district, so we had some wine 
at the very good lunch we had at the Hdtel de 
France et des Postes. Then on through the wine 



246 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

country, with its sad-looking grape vines that year, 
through Bar-sur-Aube (population 4500) with its 
old twelfth to fourteenth century churches. Here 
the allies defeated the French in 18 14. Next we 
passed again through Troyes; then Nogent-sur- 
Seine (population 4000). Near Nogent was the 
abbey of Paraclet, founded in 1123 by Abelard, 
who was interred there with his Heloise. 

Then through a carefully cultivated country, 
noticeably less given over to the raising of grapes, 
we came at late dusk to Bar-sur-Seine, where we 
dined indifferently. Should we push on to Paris 
and the comfort of our rooms secured at H6tel 
France et Choiseul? Better that than trying 
our luck in a hotel, so near Paris, that served 
such a dinner. All we saw of Bar-sur-Seine, that 
once fortified and often sacked town, was its 
situation on a wooded hill; part of its old wall 
surmounted by a clock tower; the fine bridge 
over the Seine; and what looked to be an ancient 
church. 

We were fairly rested after our evening dinner; 
but, oh! the long, long turning here and there 
in search of smooth going over the roads to Paris. 
They had been worn down by heavy wagoning, 



TO AND FROM OBER-AMMERGAU 2^7 

even where paved with Belgian blocks. However, 
perseverance won its reward and at 12.15, t>y the 
Bercy Gate, after a day's run of 226 miles, we 
entered Paris. Before very long we were luxuriat- 
ing in our rooms at the France et Choiseul, a 
good, quiet hotel, built round a central court- 
yard, on Rue St. Honor6, near Place Venddme. Our 
trunks, sent from Tours, letters, papers, baths, 
relaxation, and then Paris awaited us on the 
morrow. We were as happy as we were tired, 
and oh! the delightful rest and refreshment of 
that night begun at 1.45 a.m. 



CHAPTER VI 

Paris, London, and across tKe 
-A.tlantic, Home 

PARIS AND LONDON 

Like a clear flame of vast and lambent light and white hot heat 
That shows at once the way and yields the power to quickly 

traverse it 
Has splendid Paris always seemed to me. Clear is its range of 

thought, 
And boundless is its furious verve to wreak it in passionate acts. 
But London vaster, stronger, staider, cloudier thinking, 
And bending all she is to basic generalizing uncontrovertible, 
Like some all-bounteous mother of a teeming berserk breed, 
Does seem to me the urging parent of an all-conquering race. 
Not only arms prevail. Thought finding Truth shall conquer all. 
Though Paris and its France shall brightly shine with brilliant 

deeds. 
Yet shall her faulty generalizing hold her something back 
While London and England slow but sure to practise basic facts 
In trade, or arms, in all the varying phases of her life, 
Yet presses on to greater greatness grown from steadiness of aim. 



UNDAY, August 28, 1910. "Slept 

late," says my commonplace book. 

Then began our Paris sightseeing, 

our first walk in the Tuileries 

Gardens, viewing its leisure crowd, Monsieur 

248 




PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 249 

Pol, feeding the free, tamed flock of sparrows 
who would perch upon him, take food from his 
mouth, etc. ; the beautiful Palace of the Tuileries, 
the glorious Venus de Milo, queen of its museum 
treasures, a few other old favourites among the 
works of Velasquez, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, 
Raphael, and others of the immortal painters; 
meeting old friends, and at tea that afternoon some 
relatives left from the heavy raids death had 
recently made on our family. At dusk we walked 
from the Arc de Triomphe to the Rond-Point, 
along the splendid Champs-Elysees, the great 
driveway, parked and marked on either side with 
double lines of sycamore trees, set with restaurants 
and fine palaces, hotels, dwellings, and stores, and 
extending from the Arc de Triomphe to the 
glorious Place de la Concorde, around the Obelisk 
to the north of the Tuileries Gardens ; and then took 
a taxi to our hotel. "Have you far to go?" said 
the coachman. " My horse is weak." A Parisian 
coachman tender with his horse! I hope the race 
of coachmen has been maligned. After looking up 
our faithful chauffeur we had a quiet and excellent 
lunch at our hotel. We went to meet my daughter, 
just come to Paris, and found her very well. 



250 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Paris, Monday, August 29, 19 10, A delight- 
fully leisurely breakfast, then to our bankers for 
money and mail ; to the baggage-forwarding agency 
there to leave our keys needed for the regulation 
customs inspection of our trunks forwarded from 
Antwerp; bought tickets for Rostand's Chanticleer; 
and then the ladies began the choicest pleasure 
that elegant Paris offers to womankind — shopping 
— and my brother-in-law and I began a period of 
periodical banishment. We made some inquiries 
about certain automobile matters; but had to 
return at two o'clock, for was not the two hours' 
rest beginning? By two o'clock we ended our 
stroll through the exhilarating streets of central 
Paris and returned to the automobile tire agency. 
For two of their tires each guaranteed to run 
3000 miles, but blowing out on less than 1500, 
they allowed us only 100 francs. What should 
we do? Why, write to their parent house in 
New York, of course. 

In the afternoon we went, via Porte Maillot, 
to St. Denis, just outside of Paris, to see the 
burial-place of the French kings. It is now a 
parish church. Founded in 275, above the 
grave of St. Denis, the present building is the 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 251 

latest of many reconstructions, and presents 
many portions of various buildings and styles. 
The battlements along the top of the fagade were 
erected for defensive purposes in the fourteenth 
century. Most of the French kings and their 
families, from Dagobert L, were buried there. 
The Red Revolutionists threw out their remains 
which were then lost; and destroyed the tombs 
which, however, have all been restored. While 
presenting many beautiful examples of various 
styles of French mortuary architecture and 
sculpture, they are, on the whole, disappointing 
and not comparable to the commemorative tombs 
and statues in Westminster Abbey. 

At night we went to see Chanticleer, and thought 
it a most sprightly and very French conceit 
for a play, and a great literary success; but over- 
long and strained, and, to my mind, not relieved, 
by the brilliance of its quotations or by adequate 
understanding of the letterpress which is in some- 
what forced and antique language to afford the 
rhyme. 

Paris, Tuesday, August 30, 1910. Letters, 
note-book, lunch with relatives, after all our party 
but myself had gone to various dressmakers' to 



252 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

see the new styles displayed on walking models. 
In the afternoon we went to St. Cloud (population 
8000), which is named after a monastery founded 
here by St. Clodoald grandson of Clovis. The 
palace was erected by a private citizen in 1572, and 
stands in a handsome and elaborately decorated 
park of ninety-seven acres, ending in a terrace 
overlooking the almost adjacent city of Paris. 
From this terrace the Germans shelled Paris in 
1870, after destroying the chateau. St. Cloud was 
bought in 1658 by Louis XIV. and rebuilt. The 
Council of Five Hundred dispersed by Napoleon I. 
reconvened there. Napoleon I. and Napoleon 
HI. often stayed there. In 1815, the second 
capitulation of Paris was signed there; and, in 
1830, Charles X. issued thence his proclamations 
abolishing the freedom of the press, dissolving 
the Chambers, and altering the law of elections, 
and so precipitated the revolution of July. Just 
south of St. Cloud is the "Sevres" china factory. 
From St. Cloud we went to St. Germain. It 
was founded in 1108-37 by Louis VI. as a castle 
fortress to command the Seine; and its pretty 
Gothic chapel, completed in 1238, in the reign of 
Louis IV., yet remains. The castle was destroyed 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 253 

in the English wars, restored by Charles V., and 
replaced by the present heavy building erected 
by Francis I., who here celebrated his marriage 
to Claude of France, daughter of Louis XI I. An- 
other chateau was begun by Henri II., completed 
by Henri IV., and destroyed with the exception of 
the Pavilion Henri IV. in 1776. Louis XIV. 
was born there in 1638, and retired there in order 
to escape Paris after his mother's death, but, 
finding it too small, he built Versailles. James 
11. of England died there in 1701 after having 
occupied the palace for twelve years. Napoleon 
used it as a school for cavalry officers; and sub- 
sequently it became a military prison. It is now 
being restored according to the original plans, and 
the completed parts are used as a museum. In 
the Church of St. Germain is a simple monument 
of marble erected by George IV. of England to 
the memory of James II. The monument was 
restored by Queen Victoria. The Pleasance of 
St. Germain is one and a half miles long, two 
hundred feet above the Seine, and overlooks the 
river, its valley, distant meadows, numerous 
handsome residences, and the 11,000-acre Forest 
of St. Germain. 



254 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Returning to Paris "they" went to a dinner 
and "we" dined at our hotel and afterwards 
walked on the beautifully lit Rue de Rivoli, and 
through the Palais Royal. 

Paris, August 31/10. Our ladies to dress- 
makers. My brother-in-law writing. I to the 
Louvre. It is useless to attempt to enumerate its 
glories of art. However at the south-eastern end 
and next to Rue de Rivoli, I believe, I came across 
a number of small Rembrandts belonging to a 
collection recently bequeathed to the Louvre. 
They were not good examples of that master. 
Later, in the great gallery of Old Masters I saw 
the magnificent Rembrandts. Though not the 
very finest of his works, was there ever more 
perfect meeting, of special skill and subject than 
is shown in Rembrandt's almost duplicate pictures 
of Christ in the two Disciples at Emmaus? 

September i/io to September 3/10. These days 
were spent in shopping by the ladies, who some- 
times took the men along to one of the great shops 
to buy gloves, etc. But ordinarily we roamed about 
Paris and visited many galleries. My daughter 
often accompanied me to the Louvre and Luxem- 
bourg of which neither of us tired. And we all 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 255 

paid many social visits and went to the theatre 
and opera. I see from my note-book that on the 
3d my brother-in-law and I visited the pictures 
and collection of sculpture in the Glass Palace, 
Avenue Alexandre III., where it seems I was 
highly pleased with the "fine Henners and Ziems, 
a Neuville, and fine Benjamin Constant, but for 
the most part all the modern pictures were grandi- 
ose. Fine new sculpture. Fremiet, and Boucher, 
and " The Man of Ephraim Carrying his Dead Wife 
on a Donkey. '' And it seems that I visited many 
book stores, and bought a History of France, and 
Les Tableaux Synoptigues de Vllistoire de France. 

Sunday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Re- 

al metres at time marks 

9/4/10 12.30 Paris Versailles 30 1. 00 Good lunch at 

" S-oo Versailles Paris 30 5.30 Hotel des Reser- 

60 1. 00 

At 12.30 we started on a good-bye "Auto" 
ride to Versailles, for to-morrow we were to send 
the car home via Antwerp. Versailles (population 
55,000) was on very low ground till Louis XIV. 
spent millions of francs in making some elevations. 
Any extended view from it was and is lacking. 
So soon as he had built here its gigantic palace 
in the spacious grounds, all produced at a cost of 



256 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

some 100,000,000 francs, Versailles became the 
headquarters of the Court and a big village grew 
up around it. From it France and all her interests 
were managed by Louis, the laborious worker, his 
IMinisters, and the various mistresses and satellites 
who helped to obscure his naturally robust com- 
mon-sense. Soon the adulations poured on him 
destroyed his poise of mind. He became the 
Whole State, grew greedy for praise and glory, 
and pampered his every whim at whatever cost to 
others. Under him France shone on the surface 
with high society, but below was hollowness; 
while all but the richest and most favourably 
situated people grew more wretched and poverty- 
stricken. The wrongs of very many generations 
accumulated to destroy the wickedly selfish sys- 
tem that had long held the people in virtual slavery. 
So soon as that system could no longer live off 
bankrupt France in the old way, but had to come 
to them for aid and comfort they took their 
revenge, and when started lost all self-control. 
Here at Versailles in this very H6tel des Reservoirs 
one of the brilliant harpies who helped the King 
consume the vitality of old France lived in gorgeous 
effrontery. In the great palace itself lived the 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 257 

"Sun King," Louis XIV., conscious of what he 
was inflicting on his country, but coldly callous 
so long as he was grandly served. "After me 
the Deluge." 

Let us get some idea of this gorgeous establish- 
ment of Versailles in which this cold-hearted and 
gorgeous being played his role of grandeur. Like 
Francis I.'s Chambord, that second largest palace 
of French royalty, it is set on a wretchedly low 
site. A hunting-lodge of Louis XIII. was built 
here in 1624 and is now incorporated in the 
marble court at the end of the gigantic "royal 
court" through which the main entrance is reached. 
Louis XIV. used that lodge for hunting purposes 
as early as 1662. In 1668 he began to extend it 
as at present, and developed it into a many- 
windowed palace, 635 yards long, intended to 
accommodate 10,000 persons, among whom were 
all the members of his own Court; and there were 
rooms for all the agencies and pleasures of arbi- 
trary central government. From the rear of the 
central building to the entrance of the royal court 
is over 300 yards. From each side of that cen- 
tral court, which is about 150 yards wide, and 
something more in depth, extend to south and 



258 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

to north great wings each 250 yards long and 125 
yards deep. All the palace is two storeys high. 
Some of the old gorgeous furnishings remain and 
all of the florid paintings on walls and ceilings. 
The horrid memories of the falseness and waste 
and destitution wrought by nearly all the life 
lived there, remain too. The palace faces the 
east, and before it in the middle of the court is 
a colossal statue of Louis XIV.; sixteen huge 
statues of marshals and statesmen of France 
are ranged about that court to which Louis 
Philippe removed many of them from the Pont 
de la Concorde in 1837, when he made Versailles 
into a great National Museum. During the 
Revolution the royal furniture was sold and the 
pictures hung in the Louvre. The great bed in 
which Louis died is yet in his bedroom. 

Hundreds of thousands of visitors every year 
visit the immense palace, but they are attracted 
chiefly by the extensive, stiff, solemn, and old- 
fashioned gardens which are in perfect keeping 
with the pretentious palace itself. Through 
those vast gardens are scattered hundreds of 
sculptures in marble, bronze, or lead. Down 
their long centre runs a broad grass plot at whose 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 259 

far end is the Basin of Apollo filled with water. 
On either side of the grass plot are groves of trees 
and shrubbery enclosing in sections various 
decorative features. All this is very beautiful 
when viewed from the broad plaza immediately 
back of the palace, and facing its northern and 
southern walls of flat foliage afforded by trees 
trimmed into formal shape. 

But the most beautiful objects of all are the 
scores of fountains scattered throughout the 
grounds. They are profusely sculptured, and on 
certain days at certain hours divers figures, such 
as dolphins, etc., pour forth beautiful jets of 
water rising to varying heights and dimensions. 
Continuing these vast gardens of Versailles is the 
large, formal, and fairly crooked Park of Versailles, 
and the cruciform canal whose long arms stretch 
out due west and close beyond the basin of 
Apollo. 

To the north of that canal's northern arm are the 
Big and Little Trianon and the toy village con- 
structed by placid Louis XVL and Marie Antoin- 
ette, his frivolous and silly but brave little Queen, 
as a residence, and as a relief from the ponderous 
and money-sucking Palace of Versailles. We 



260 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

went through all the Trianon settlement. What 
a piteous plaything it seemed. When stern and 
persistent work was needed to divert the "Deluge, " 
Louis was pottering or playing about with his 
poor silly Court and its child Queen. I felt 
saddened by the pathetic Trianon toy and greatly 
indignant at the brutally egotistic extravagance 
speaking from every foot of the pretentious 
Palace of Versailles. 

Returning to Paris we brought to mind the 
fact that we were taking together our last motoring 
of the tour, and realized how delightful it had all 
been. Kindly give and take had been the effort 
and the practice of us all; and the multiform 
pleasures afforded us by country, buildings, art 
etc., we knew would remain with us all an unend- 
ing pleasure. Next day my brother-in-law and I 
were to motor in the faithful Packard driven by 
the devoted and capable "Tom" to Givet, when 
Tom would proceed to Antwerp and by the Red 
Star Steamer sail for New York. 



Monday Started From To Kilo- Arrived Running Meals and Remarks 

at metres at time 

9/S/io 9.40 Paris Meaux 70 12.50 Lunch at H6tel de la 

" 1.40 Meaux Givet 192 9.30 Sirene. Bad indeed. 

•^- Dinner at H§tel de 

263 11.00 la Sirene, "' Bad 

indeed. t"r 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 261 

At 940 my brother-in-law and I left Paris for 
Givet via Porte de Vincennes and passed by a 
great parade ground. We soon came to Meaux 
(population 14,000), a town trading largely in 
grain and Brie cheese and possessing a hotel 
affording as uninviting food as can well be im- 
agined. It is a very uninteresting town. It was 
burnt by the Normans in 865, captured by the 
English in 1422, and retaken by the French in 
1429. It very early adopted the Reformation. 
Its Cathedral of St. Etienne, of twelfth and 
sixteenth centuries, has a handsome fagade, and is 
said to be well decorated within. But we could 
not stop to enter it. Tom was due with the 
machine at Antwerp on Wednesday to sail for 
America. 

On we went towards Givet in an almost straight 
line. Soon we came to Soissons (population 14,- 
000), an agricultural centre, having a fine twelfth to 
thirteenth century church, famous for the many 
sieges it has undergone, but noted chiefly because 
there in 486 Clovis decisively defeated the Romans 
and broke their power in France. There too 
Louis the Debonair, son of Charlemagne, was 
imprisoned by his three sons. 



262 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Our next stop was at the ruins of the huge 
fortress castle Coucy-le-Chateau. It was built 
in the thirteenth century, it covers 10,000 square 
yards, and is said to have the finest and most 
enormous donjon keep in Europe. In addition 
there are four towers at intervals along its enclos- 
ing wall. The donjon is 210 feet high, 100 feet 
in diameter, and in some places 34 feet thick. 
Thus protected and set on a hill very steep on 
three sides, it was indeed a stronghold. It was 
bought about 1400 by that brother of Charles V., 
Louis of Orleans, who built the great fortress, 
Chateau of Pierrefonds. He altered the interior 
of Coucy-le-Chateau. In 1652, Mazarin had it 
dismantled. Its last owner was Philippe "Ega- 
lite" of Orleans. Now it belongs to the State. 
With this last inspection of a French fortress 
chateau, we hastened along, and in about thirty 
minutes came to Laon (population 15,000). 

Laon is set on a long isolated hill, six hundred 
feet high, is strongly fortified, and is a fortress 
in the so-called second line of defence of Paris to 
the northward and commands the valley of 
the Oise. The later Carlovingian kings often 
lived there. Henri IV. captured it in 1594, and 



PARIS, LONDON, AND H0A4E 263 

it suffered greatly in the later religious wars. 
In 1 8 15, Napoleon was defeated there, and in 
1 81 5 the Allies occupied the town after a short 
siege. It has a very fine twelfth to thir- 
teenth century cathedral. 

Our next stop was at Rocroi (population about 
2100), an old walled town fortified by Vauban, 
the site of a brilliant victory won by the great 
Conde for Louis XIV. over Spanish infantry, 
until then invincible. Here we sought in vain 
lodging for the night. It was dark and a heavy 
rain was falling. We rushed along and soon were 
passing through a forest just above Tournai, a 
manufacturing town (population 5800). Our 
headlights must have hypnotized the thirteen 
rabbits they picked up in the road, for the creatures 
leaped away just in time to prevent being run over. 
Having descended the steep slope leading into 
Tournai we sought the Hotel du Commerce to 
which we had been recommended a little while 
back on the road, but could not stand its accommo- 
dations and pushed on to Givet (population 
7600), where at 9.30 we secured fair rooms, a 
pretty good dinner, and clean beds. Givet used 
to be a fortified city, but with the exception of a 



264 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

citadel, called Charlemont after Charles V., built 
on a hill seven hundred feet high, all its fortifica- 
tions were demolished in 1892. It is a very 
picturesque town, and the bridge over the Meuse 
is quite striking. Being at the end of the French 
pan-handle poking into Belgium, it is very notable. 
Tuesday, 9/6/10. We rose betimes to set 
Tom over the border into Belgium. At nine 
o'clock we started for the Belgian Custom House. 
At 9.40 we bade good-bye and good voyage to 
Tom, and saw him off, with great regret at the 
parting, for he had proved steady, faithful, even- 
tempered, and skilful throughout our touring of 
about 4000 miles. More than once his coolness, 
nerve, and strength, had saved us from collisions 
threatened by others. Well, there he went, to 
Dinant, to Namur, to Bruxelles, to Antwerp, to 
New York, to home in Baltimore. That sounded 
attractive. And it seemed queer to use a carriage 
instead of the machine back to Civet. But it 
helped us to realize that we were to have the 
pleasure of rejoining our wives and that within 
a few weeks we also would set out for our Baltimore 
homes. We wandered about Civet until train 
time. During our journey back along the Meuse 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 265 

we compared recollections of our whole motor 
trip. We had suffered no punctures, though many 
were the hobnails our tires picked up in Belgium, 
Normandy, and Brittany; we had made no repairs 
to machinery, nor lost any portion of it at any 
time, and had experienced only five blow-outs. I 
thought I had demonstrated this truth, that in 
order to avoid tire trouble an automobile should 
run on as heavy tires as is possible. Nowhere 
did we find trouble in buying gasoline. That 
and Peters (Swiss) Chocolate were to be had in 
even the humblest villages. Soon we were back 
in Paris; and driving past the site of the Bastille, 
the Column of July, down the brilliant Rue de 
Rivoli, and to the door of our comfortable hotel. 

Wednesday, Sept. 7th; Thursday, Sept. 8th, 
and Friday, Sept. 9th were filled with delightful 
Paris life. Galleries, strolling, visiting, theatres, 
or operas at night, and only one regret that our 
little party was to disband, for my brother-in- 
law and his wife went to London on the 9th 
for a few days before sailing for America. Then 
"we" felt more deeply conscious than ever of 
their constant kindliness and lively interest in all 
that concerned the welfare of our joint and delight- 



266 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

£ul motoring expedition. We bade them good- 
bye and good voyage, and as they drove away 
waving adieu, were glad to remember that ere- 
long we should see them at home in America. 
We also were to go to London in a few days and 
then sail on the i6th for America. It behooved 
us then to make the most of Paris, And in order 
to help myself do so I tried to properly correlate 
it with France and compiled the following 
summary. 

France has an area of 207,000 square miles; a 
coast line of 1760 miles, of which 1304 are on the 
Atlantic and 456 on the Mediterranean ; a popula- 
tion of 40,000,000. It is divided into 87 depart- 
ments, each administered by a Prefect, and 
together comprising 32,222 communes, varying 
in population from about 500 to 1500. The 
communes are governed by a locally elected Coun- 
cil of 10 to 36 members, whose acts must be 
approved by the Prefect or in certain cases by 
the Council General, or by the President of the 
Republic. The next unit is the Canton (there 
are 29 11 in France) generally comprising 12 com- 
munes, and treated merely as a judicial division. 
Then comes the third division, the Arrondisse- 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 267 

ment (362) governed by a Council having in it 
a representative of each canton. A varying 
number of Arrondissements form a department 
governed by a Council General on which serves one 
member from each Canton. Half of such Councils 
General retire every three years. The President 
of the Republic is elected every seven years by 
an absolute majority vote of the French Senate 
and House of Deputies in joint session. He 
promulgates the laws and chooses his Ministry, 
generally from the two Chambers. He concludes 
treaties alone, save when they affect the area of 
the French Republic, in which case the assent 
of the Chambers is requisite, and so also is it in 
declaring war. Each of his acts must be signed 
by a Minister. With the consent of the Senate 
he can dissolve the House of Deputies. The 
Chamber of 597 Deputies is elected for four years 
by universal suffrage, each civilian citizen twenty- 
one years old, of six months' residence in a town or 
commune, and not otherwise disqualified, having 
one vote. Deputies must be citizens and twenty- 
five years old. Each Arrondissement elects at 
least one deputy, and if its population is more 
than 10,000, two or more. 



263 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



The Senate is composed of three hundred mem- 
bers elected for nine years from citizens of forty 
years or more, and one third retire every three 
years. The Senators are elected indirectly and 
by a body composed: (i) of delegates chosen by 
the Municipal Council of each Commune in pro- 
portion to its population, and (2) of the Deputies, 
Councillors-General, and District Councillors of the 
Department. Besides 225 Senators thus elected 
there were in 1875, 75 Senators elected for life 
by the united two Chambers. In 1884, it was en- 
acted that vacancies among the Life Senators 
should be filled by the election of ordinary nine- 
year Senators, placing the Senatorship among 
the departments by lot. 

The Chambers assemble yearly in January 
and must sit five out of the twelve months. One 
half their number can force the President to con- 
vene them; and he can adjourn them not more 
than twice a year, nor longer than one month. 
The Senate is a High Court of Justice and tries 
cases of treason. 

The Council of State instituted by Napoleon 
1. and since continued consists of the Minister 
of Justice, Councillors, Masters of Request, and 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 269 

Auditors, all appointed by the President of the 
Republic, and is charged with the duty of giving 
opinions upon such questions, chiefly administra- 
tive, as the Government may submit. It is the 
final Court of Appeals in administrative suits, and 
prepares the rules for the public administration. 

Any Commune containing 2000 or more people 
closely grouped is called "urban"; or if having 
less, "rural." Accordingly the "urban" popula- 
tion of France is about 16,500,000 and the "rural" 
about 22,750,000. No religion is recognized by 
the State, nor are any public salaries paid to 
ecclesiastics. 

Beginning with December 9, 1905, ecclesiastics 
over forty-five years of age and of more than 
twenty-five years' service, remunerated by the 
State, receive a pension, and all others receive 
a grant during four to eight years. Buildings 
actually used for public worship and subsidiary 
dwellings were inventoried and made over to the 
associations of public worship, the former per- 
manently, the latter for a time. Failing such 
appointment, these buildings are undisturbed 
but are administered by the Prefect if belonging 
to the State or a Department, or by the Mayor, 



270 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

if they are the property of a Commune. This 
last provision allowed a perversion of the intent 
of the law. Therefore, on July i, 1901, a new law 
required that religious communities must be 
authorized by the State, and forbade monastic 
associations with a special law in each case. 
Whereas, before this law of 1901 there had 
been 910 recognized associations and 753 not 
recognized, after its passage 305 of those associa- 
tions "not recognized" dissolved, and the remain- 
der being refused authorization ceased to legally 
exist. The establishments (dwellings, I imagine) 
not recognized numbered 19,154 and their mem- 
bers 159,628 (30,136 men and 129,492 women). 
These numbers have been greatly reduced as 
many of the inmates have settled in groups in 
other countries. 

Primary instruction is free and compulsory, 
and higher instruction free. This education and 
compulsory service in the army has sobered and 
upbuilt the nation. Teachers must be law. For 
educational purposes France is divided into 
seventeen districts called Academies. The State 
and Communes between them care for the indigent 
poor and for helpless age. 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 271 

The land defences of France are along the 
German frontier. The first class, fortresses of 
Verdun, Toul, Epinal, Belfort; then midway to 
Paris on another segment of a circle, the second 
class, fortresses which for some years past have 
been comparatively dismantled, Maubeuge, La 
Fere, Rheims, Langres, Dijon, and Besangon; 
then Paris in the centre with its surrounding wall 
and earthen glacis, 97 bastions, 17 old forts, and 
38 new advance forts or batteries dominated by the 
two entrenched camps of St. Denis and Versailles. 
On the Italian border Briangon and Grenoble 
are the chief forts, with Lyon in the rear. Then 
there are the isolated forts near Nancy, Luneville, 
Remiremont, Nice, etc. On the coast Toulon, 
Rochefort, L' Orient, Brest, and Cherbourg are 
naval harbours surrounded by forts. 

The French Army is divided into the Metropoli- 
tan and the Colonial, of which the latter serves 
all the Colonies, except Algeria and Tunis. All 
able-bodied Frenchmen must serve in the Army 
from the age of 20 years to 48. In the first line 
(active) the term of actual service is 3 years and 
begins at 20. Then comes 11 years of potential 
service in the reserve; potential service in the 



272 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

territorial army for 7 years; and finally 7 years 
of service, also potential, in the territorial reserve. 
When in the reserve army, two periods of four 
weeks each are required, while the requirement 
for the territorial army is only one period of two 
weeks, and that of the territorial reserve none 
at all. On a peace footing the Metropolitan 
army numbers 703,000 men, and the Colonial 
87,000. The Navy is about the third largest in 
the world; but France has never shone in naval 
warfare. 

Of the total area of France (130,712,913 acres) 
more than 23,000,000 are under forests, and these 
forest lands are being increased as a protection 
against floods, and as a needed best crop in many 
soils; about 9,500,000 is moor and uncultivated; 
98,000,000 under cultivation of which about 
59,000,000 is arable, and 39,000,000 under fallow 
land and grass. Nearly four million acres are in 
vineyards, cared for by more than 1,500,000 
persons, and producing more than 1,300,000 
gallons of wine. Agriculture, manufacture, min- 
ing, fisheries, chiefly engage the business efforts 
of this industrious, frugal, and clever nation. 
Socialized service of public utilities has gone 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 273 

far in France and many Frenchmen are feeling 

their way towards further extending it. The 

lack of private competition is often a handicap, 

as in the case of the railroads, but on the other 

hand the State has restrained some unjustified 

railroad strikes and seeks to hold the balance 

even between capital and labour. The national 

roads, 23,899 miles long, in addition to the local 

vicinal roads, and the splendid canal and canalized 

river and river systems of France, eke out its 

fairly expansive but little expanding railroad 

system. A passionate and beautiful and gracious 

country is France. In peace very attractive; 

in war very fierce. 

I went with my daughter on many excursions; 

but generally she and my wife were shopping; 

or all of us went sight-seeing together. As I 

escaped much shopping I was never reduced to the 

state shown in the conversation I overheard at our 

hotel between a husband and wife : Said the man, 

"What do I want to do? I want to get through 

with this d — m dressmaking. I want to go 

anywhere but to a dry goods shop. I want to 

see the village." Stony silence followed. 

On the 9th I wrote to the station-master, 
18 



274 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Folkestone Harbour, England, asking him to 
reserve five seats — a compartment virtually — 
for my family part}'- of three and for two of our 
friends on the boat train to London, on September 
nth, but learning that our friends had done the 
same I withheld my letter. My daughter and 
I took another ride on a Seine steamer, another 
look at Notre Dame, the Invalides, Bois de Bou- 
logne, and repeatedly returned to the Louvre, 
etc., and all of us were often in the beautiful 
Bois de Boulogne and about the Boulevards. 
One day I sat for several hours at the cafe on the 
corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the 
Place de 1' Opera, to test the saying, "Sit there 
thirty minutes and you will surely have some old 
acquaintance hail you." None appeared to me. 
But it is a cosmopolitan gathering- place. And 
toughdom knows it. 

On that day, September 9th, too, I viewed at 
Duveen's, on Place Vendome, a large Gains- 
borough canvas, a full-length picture of Lady 
Duncomhe from Lord Radnor's collection, price 
£45,000, and a Romney, Lady Milnes, price 
£20,000. The latter I thought the better speci- 
men though not the greater picture. I find that 




Q 






o 

O 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 275 

my note-book adds: "Lloyd-George & Co. are 
thus dispersing England's art as their foolish 
taxes are robbing England's savings, weakening 
her internally, and producing pauperism." But 
their worst fault is being too radical. 

I visited the Pantheon and saw Rodin's splendid 
bronze statue Penseur in front of it. The Pan- 
theon overhead oppresses you with the emptiness 
of its space, hardly redeemed by the Puvis de 
Chavannes and other frescoes on its walls; while 
the great dead buried in the crypt in small alcoves 
seem almost dishonourably thrust away below. 
The crypt of St. Paul's, London, is bad enough, 
but that of the Pantheon! St. Etienne-du-Mont 
to the north of the Pantheon was built in the 
fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries of mixed Gothic 
and Renaissance architecture. Its interior is 
most ornate and delicate. Its stained-glass win- 
dows are of the sixteenth century, and very beauti- 
ful. We viewed, also, the tomb of the great 
Richelieu, at the Sorbonne, which he founded, 
and the fine marble statue on his now empty 
tomb. Then we took a last look at our Velasquez, 
Da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Van 
Dyke, Rubens, Hals, and other pictures in the 



276 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Louvre and at the Venus de Milo. In the Church 
of St. Germain des Pres, we saw the place of 
burial of that great thinker Des Cartes, who gave 
us "I think; therefore I exist." 

Later my daughter and I worked over my 
postal collection of Queens of France, and I tried 
to arrange my knowledge and impressions of 
Paris, the beautiful capital of the wonderful 
French nation. 

Paris is nearly circular, is surrounded by twenty- 
one miles of fortified walls, covers about 20,000 
acres, is pierced by the Seine (covering 1760 acres) 
which a little to the south of the city is joined by 
the Marne and by the Oise. At first Paris 

A A 

occupied the lie de la Cite and the lie St. Louis 
in the Seine. In the year 1300, the city had a 
population of about 200,000; in 1675, under Louis 
XIV., 540,000; in 1789, 600,000, and in 1906 about 
2,800,000, including 250,000 foreigners. With its 
adjacent settlements it represents three and one 
quarter million people. The Seine within it is 
thirty-one miles long and is crossed by thirty-one 
bridges. The old city is enclosed by the semi- 
circle of Grands Boulevards from the Madeleine 
to the Place de la Bastille with the Seine as the 




o nj 
o Ph 



^ 



O 



O 



> 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 277 

chord of the arc, and also extends on the left to 
the Luxembourg garden. 

The old Faubourgs, or suburbs, lie outside the 
Grands Boulevards: St. Antoine and du Temple, 
industrial districts; St. Martin, St. Denis, and 
Poissonniere, commercial districts; Montmartre 
and the Jardins de la Bourse, the Palais- 
Royal, and the Opera, the financial districts; 
St. Honore and the Champs-Elysees, the residen- 
tial quarters of the aristocracy; St. Germain, 
occupied chiefly by the French families of historic 
lineage ; and the Latin Quarter next to it contains 
the university. 

Beyond those Faubourgs but within the fortifica- 
tions are the Communes assimilated in i860 and 
famous for the following pursuits : Bercy, wine and 
exports; Charonne, Menilmontant, Belleville, La 
Villette, La Chapelle, and Montmartre, the princi- 
pal quarters of the working classes ; Les Batignolles, 
the district of studios, and of many fine private 
houses near the Pare Monceau; Passy and Auteuil, 
the villa section ; Grenelle, iron and chemical works ; 
Vaugirard, Montrouge, peopled by people of 
moderate means, small shopkeepers, and artisans, 
and containing many large market gardens. 



278 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



A government-appointed "Prefect of the 
Seine" and a citizen-elected Town Council ad- 
minister the affairs of Paris which is divided into 
twenty Arrondissements or Districts each of 
which has a Maire (Mayor). The annual income 
of Paris is about $50,000,000. About two miles 
beyond the fortified walls of Paris which are 
strengthened by bastions, a moat, and a glacis, 
are seventeen detached forts, while beyond them, 
on heights commanding the valley of the Seine, 
are many more forts, which protect also Versailles, 
Sceaux, Villeneuve, St. Georges, St. Denis, Argen- 
teuil, Enghien, and St. Germain-en-Laye. 

Volatile as alcohol, but brave and bright and 
joyous are the Parisians. Until the school- 
master and drill-master began forty-four years 
ago to instruct every Frenchman for the State 
and for no other interest, France, and especially 
Paris, was extraordinarily emotional and spas- 
modic. Much of that characteristic remains; but 
physically, morally, and mentally, the French- 
man of province and of Paris is a vastly steadier 
fellow than he used to be. Great and beautiful 
is France, and the heart of it is this most cosmopoli- 
tan city in the world — Paris the lovely, Paris 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 279 



the gracious, the elegant, the splendid in every 
way. 

You can see that I was loath to leave Paris. 
However, there was London to see; London that 
I loved so well and that interested me more than 
any other old-world capital. Then was to come 
the best of all — my own dear country. So we 
made our farewell visits to relatives and to friends, 
bought our final books, etc., and prepared to 
depart. 

Paris, Sunday 9/11/10. Having sent our bag- 
gage on before us by a porter to the railroad 
station, to be weighed, and arranged for him to 
secure us seats in the cars, we bade adieu to the 
comfortable Hotel France et Choiseul and its ac- 
commodating managers and followed our baggage. 
Not a thing had that porter accomplished. How- 
ever, I soon righted matters and we were off — 
my wife, my daughter, and I — for my daughter 
was to return with us to America after a tour 
with friends before joining us in Paris. The lunch 
we had brought with us from the hotel was accept- 
able; and the run to our old acquaintance Boulogne 
and then across the Channel to Folkestone very 
pleasant. Indeed the Channel was just the 



280 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

least bit ruffled by a balmy breeze, and our seats, 
the position on board, and the sunshine altogether 
satisfactory. The shores of old England always 
are a welcome sight to me. There they were. 
At Folkestone, we settled ourselves comfortably 
in the compartment the station-master had 
reserved for us, then were off for London through 
the beautiful and orderly marked fields of southern 
England. When we reached Charing Cross Sta- 
tion I sought the baggage-omnibus I had ordered 
by wire from Folkestone two hours and a half 
earlier, for the friends accompanying us, one of 
whom was elderly and sick, but no such omnibus 
was to be found. While the station-master was 
procuring one and explaining that no such wire 
had come to him, I filed a complaint at the station 
headquarters, and gave my hotel address. Next 
day I received a government acknowledgment. 
And there followed me to America an official 
"regret" that the message had not been promptly 
forwarded by their employe at Folkestone, and an 
order on themselves for its cost 8d. They still 
owe it. When next in England I may try to 
collect it as a souvenir. The rooms a friend had 
engaged for us at the Hotel Curzon, Curzon and 







o 

o 
Q 

o 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 281 

Bolton streets, in Mayfair, two squares from the 
Green Park, proved very satisfactory. The 
management was very obliging. 

Monday, September 12/10. Found us shop- 
ping for the man of our party, visiting friends, 
securing theatre tickets for every night of our 
intended short stay in London, and beginning 
the steady visiting of the galleries and buildings 
and parks of London that always entice an Ameri- 
can who is visiting the great capital of the great 
people from whom our country has derived so 
much of her greatness. London had improved, 
w^e said. Yes, better thoroughfares, more electric 
taxis, faster cabs, cleaner streets, cleaner buildings 
and air, due to the substitution of coke for coal, 
more fine public buildings and underground roads, 
etc., accounted for that. I can't go into details, 
but I cannot refrain from mentioning the intense 
pleasure given us by Velasquez's Portrait, in the 
National Gallery, of the Spanish Admiral, and by 
his Venus, too, but the first is, I believe, the grand- 
est picture portrait in the world. The wonderful 
portrait bust of Caesar in the British Museum 
also thrilled me again. It seems to me an adequate 
representation of the greatest uninspired man of 



282 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

whom the world holds record. And Westminster 
Abbey and all its glorious story in stone, etc., gave 
us deep pleasure once again. Such were our enjoy- 
ments on the 13th and 14th, and on the 15th we 
went to Hove (adjacent to Brighton) for the day, 
to visit relatives. Hove is a good-looking, quiet, 
retiring, wind-cleaned town near the green waters 
of the English Channel, adjacent to the worn and 
cockney-infested Brighton; but Brighton has a 
fine pier, bathing-machines, and a flower market. 
Here I will present my summary of the English 
Government. 

Great Britain. The supreme legislative power 
of the British Empire, whose technical ruler is 
King of England, vScotland, Ireland, Wales, and 
the Empire of India, is by its Constitution given 
to Parliament which consists of a House of Lords 
and of a House of Commons. The first consists of 
Peers who hold their seats: (i) by hereditary right; 
(2) by creation of the Sovereign; (3) by virtue 
of their office— law- Lords and English Arch- 
bishops and Bishops; (4) by election for life — 
Irish Peers; (5) by election for duration of Parlia- 
ment — Scottish Peers. In 1913 the House of 
Lords consisted of 638. There are, besides, 16 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 283 

Peeresses of the United Kingdom and 3 Scottish 
Peeresses in their own right, and 19 Scottish and 59 
Irish Peers who are not Peers of Parliament. 

The House of Commons consists of members 
representing county, borough, and university 
constituencies. No one under twenty-one years 
of age can be a member of Parliament; nor can 
any clergyman of the Church of England, minister 
of the Church of Scotland, or Roman Catholic 
clergyman become a member. No government 
contractor, sheriff, or returning officer can for 
his district either vote for or serve as member of 
the House of Commons. No Scotch or English 
Peer may be a member of the House, but Irish 
Peers are not so forbidden. Beginning in 191 1, 
salaries of £400 were voted members of the 
House not drawing official salaries. Every elector 
in the United Kingdom must be twenty-one years 
old or more and duly registered. Property 
qualifications are restricted to counties and to the 
boroughs having county privileges. In England 
and Wales they are: the holders of an estate 
(i) in freehold of the annual value of 40 shillings; 
(2) of lands in life tenure of the annual value of 
£5 (in Scotland and Ireland £10); (3) held on 



284 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

lease of at least 80 years of the annual value of 
£5 (in Scotland 57 years and £10; in Ireland 60 
years and £10) or at least 20 years of the annual 
value of £50 (in Scotland 19 years and £50, in 
Ireland 14 years and £20). Throughout the 
United Kingdom in the counties, occupation of a 
tenement which is rated for the support of the 
poor, if payments have been duly met, constitutes 
a qualification, but in English and Welsh boroughs 
such occupation must be for six months and in 
Scotland for twelve. Every inhabitant occupying 
for twelve months in the United Kingdom the 
same habitation rated for and paying his poor 
rates may register, and lodgers occupying the same 
lodging for twelve months if paying £10 a year 
for such lodging may vote. Then there are the 
ancient franchises of the liverymen of the City of 
London, and six University Constituencies in 
which graduates on the electoral roll are electors. 
Disqualified for representation are women, in- 
fants, peers, idiots, and lunatics, aliens, bankrupts, 
persons who have within a year received parochial 
poor relief, and some others. About one sixth 
of the population are electors, which means that 
something over a third of the men are entitled 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 



285 



to vote. In the present House of Commons 
there are 670 members, distributed as follows : 



IOI4 


Counties 


Boroughs 


Universities 


Total 




Members 


Electors 


Members 


Electors 


Members 


Electors 


Members 


Electors 


England 
and Wales 
Scotland 
Ireland 


253 
39 

85 


3,892,150 
492,527 
568,913 


237 
31 
16 


2,707.243 
344.609 
124,768 


5 
2 
2 


20,806 
25,810 

4.417 


495 

72 

103 


6,620,219 
862,946 
698,098 


Total 


377 


4.953,590 


284 


3,176,620 


9 


51.033 


670 


8,181,263 



The Executive Government is vested nominally 
in the Crown, but really in a Committee of 
Ministers, called a Cabinet, dependent on con- 
trolling a majority of the House of Commons. 
The First Lord of the Treasury is generally the 
Chief and nominator, and dispenses most of the 
Crown patronage. 

The total population of the United Kingdom 
(England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, Isle of 
Man, and Channel Islands) is 45,370,000, and its 
area is 121,633 square miles. The English navy 
is very fine and in size almost equals that of the 
two nations having the second and third largest 
naval forces. The traditional policy of Great 
Britain is to maintain the above preparedness as 



286 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

to her navy, but to restrict her regular army to 
a mere nucleus of splendid calibre and for the rest 
to depend upon militia, the volunteer spirit of 
the inhabitants of her vast empire which covers 
nearly one fourth of the habitable globe and is 
peopled by about that proportion of the earth's 
populations living under every form of govern- 
ment but with each citizen individually free, 
and upon her stupendous wealth. Therefore her 
army on the peace footing which existed January 
1st, 19 14 was as follows: 



Regular forces, Home and Colonial' . 
Colonial and Native Indian Troops^. 

Army Reserve 

Special Reserve 

Militia Reserve 

Militia (U. K.) 

Channel Island Militia 

Malta and Bermuda Militia' 

Territorial Army 

Isle of Man Volunteers 

Officers' Training Corps 

British Troops serving in India 

Grand Total 803,037 711, 575 

' Partially stationed abroad. ' Stationed abroad. 



Establishments 


Effectives 


1914-15 


Jany 1/14 


168,500 


156,110 


8,771 


8,638 


147,000 


146,756 


80,120 


63,089 


60 


69 




47 


3.166 


3,067 


2,894 


2,703 


315,485 


251,706 


126 


119 


1,019 


795 


727,141 


633,099 


75,896 


78,476 








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2: 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 287 



But in war time — as now — the Mother Country 
calls for troops and money and receives them ad 
libitum at home and from the Colonies. The 
present dreadful war has caused England to call 
jEirst for 500,000 troops; and now she is calling 
for a second half million, and they are forthcoming 
from all her Empire. Whatever money she may 
need is likewise being provided. She is fighting 
the fight for individual freedom as opposed to 
arbitrary rule, and she is invincible because she 
represents the unapproached strength of the 
greatest multiple unit of men and wealth that the 
whole world has ever known. Unsapped by vast 
expenditures for warlike preparations in time of 
peace, she is availing herself of her reserve vitality 
to save herself and the individualistic freedom of 
the world, and is hastening the coming of the era 
when international differences shall be settled by 
a Court representing all the great nations of the 
world. 

I say all this in the full belief, however, that 
the typical individual, Russian or the individual 
German, for example, has a basic moral right to 
expect such use of ports and colonies and other 
natural trade marts as will enable him to exchange, 



283 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

to the best advantage so far as they are concerned, 
his surplus, which is needed by the typical individ- 
ual of some other nation, for the surplus of the 
individual in question. This I hope to see estab- 
lished as the best result of this fearful war, which 
is the logical outcome of international vying to 
be best prepared to be the dominant military 
lawgiver, and which was launched by the German 
Emperor at a time when the declining physique, 
and falling birth-rate, must have warned him that 
internally Germany would never be better pre- 
pared for war. War or practical disarmament 
among the great nations was the question he 
decided in favour of war. 

It is desirable that there should be an Inter- 
national Court set up by the first, second, and 
third class nations of the world, clothed with 
unlimited power of investigation and recommenda- 
tion of any and all international questions brought 
before it — the use of ports, the holding of colonies, 
etc. — and with power to enforce their decisions 
provided they are endorsed by five sixths of their 
constituent nations. 

Were such a Court at work today, peaceful 
industrial developments rather than the gigantic 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 289 

losses of the European War would be the portion 
of the world. But no! In this year of our 
Lord, 1914, as I am putting into shape the story 
of our happy travels through bounteous Belgium, 
beautiful France, culture-drilled Southern Ger- 
many, and sturdy England, much of that European 
country we visited is being devastated by war, 
and its inhabitants exposed to terrible suffering 
in person and in purse, while for England worse is 
preparing in case she and her allies are finally 
defeated. 

All this and its predicates result from the 
maintenance in time of peace of such armies as 
the German army numbering 790,985, capable of 
becoming in time of war 2,350,000, exclusive of 
the Home Guard, which would carry the total well 
over 4,000,000; and the French army of 790,000 
which in war time could swell to 1,380,000, exclu- 
sive of a Home Guard which could be whipped 
into shape to the extent perhaps of a million more. 
Fortunately for England and all she represents, 
these two armies with other huge war organizations 
are not banded together. On the contrary, the 
Russian army, equal in numbers to all those I 
have mentioned, is with those of France, Belgium, 
19 



290 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Servia, and England, contending against the Ger- 
man and the almost equally large Austrian army. 
And England, weakened by the recent too drastic 
taxation plans of Lloyd-George and his pauperizing, 
and by the failure in his plan regarding National Old 
Age Pensions and Insurance, and torn by the Irish 
Home Rule Bill and developments, has declared 
a moratorium on political differences, and as one 
man has settled down to fight to a finish. 

Her educational system, military system, voting 
system, and other such adjuncts to modern national 
developments may seem woefully lacking when 
compared with the so-called high national culture 
of her great rival protagonist Germ.any, but if we 
are to judge by their fruits, which national system 
at stake in this Old World War of the nations 
would we choose? 

As I write I find my hopes for England's greater 
growth in all the vast trade and ameliorating 
influences for which she stands increasing as 
I grow more conscious of them. May each 
citizen of the world be helped by them. In the 
final end of government they will. And not 
least among those benefited will be the individual 
German citizen who will be freed to become him- 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 291 

self instead of remaining in servitude to a military 
system which coerces him and his country against 
their enlightened will. 

Friday. September 16/10, was next to our 
last day in London. What does every American 
man do on that day? Try on some new clothes 
for the last time, of course, make final purchases, 
visit the Bank and the barber, arrange about mail; 
and the ladies also are busy with "last things." 
A few parting visits are apt to be made, and 
delayed inspections of some points of interest. 
Such in general was our experience. 

Saturday, September 17, 19 10. Found us 
completing the above programme. Then at 4.30, 
we had our properly marked "cabin" and "hold" 
baggage piled on a waiting electric omnibus cab, 
found our compartment in the steamer special at 
Charing Cross, saw the trunks duly in the baggage 
car, and secured a basket lunch and some illustrated 
newspapers and were off. By 8.25, we reached 
Dover, and went at once on the tender waiting to 
carry us to the Vaderland. By 8.35, upon signal 
from that ship lying beyond the great breakwater, 
we unmoored and over a calm moonlit sea we 
soon reached her. What a terrible time wet, 



292 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

windy weather must make for passengers on such 
Httle tenders. They have only an open, seatless 
deck for the comfort of the great crowds on board. 
But we were fortunate. Even the temperature 
was delightful. 

On board the steamer "we" promptly found 
our comfortable promenade deck cabin, No. i6, 
with its private bath. The fine salt air came in 
the big window of the cabin, and the strong salt 
water flowed refreshingly in the bath. We found 
a big basket of delicious fruit from my brother- 
in-law and his wife, and good-bye letters and 
telegrams. Soon came our steamer trunk. My 
daughter was comfortable, too, but having joined 
us hastily at the eleventh hour was restricted in the 
choice of quarters. Our seats on deck and at 
table were just where we had requested. Com- 
fortably reclining in our chairs with steamer coats 
and rugs we watched the fast disappearing lights 
of Dover, Folkestone, Hythe, and the western 
coast villas from which the Vaderland had been 
receding since 9 o'clock. We found some friends 
on board, and a full complement of passengers. 

After a good night's rest, despite our rubber 
mattresses, we began our regular schedule at sea. 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 293 

Salt sea bath, light breakfast, followed by exercise, 
though exercise came before lunch and dinner; 
and talking, reading, and cards for my wife, and 
writing for me. I made the chart of our motor 
trip, at the end of this book; blocked out some of 
its verses; and some of its historical notes on the 
various countries we visited that summer. I 
recalled the innumerable delights and kindlinesses 
experienced during our charming outing, often 
with deep affection for our comrades; watched 
the sky and sea, and dreamed in measureless 
content. Here are some of these dreamings: 

MUSING AT SEA 

Dreams that come in the night possess you through 

broken rememberings 
Of your thoughts of the day; but dreams that you 

call when awake 
You can own with that perfected ownership, the 

conscious ideal. 
Your tryst with them may be here or be there ; old 

ocean best brings mine to me. 
The white of the air, the salt in the wind, the splendid 

vast seascape. 
The roll of the sun-glinting waves set me dreaming 

away. 
The intimate vastness of all of it 'rouses my worship- 
ping prayers 



294 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

To the God of the universe for clearness of vision and 

aim. 
Oh! the hopes that then toss me; the seeming clear 

visions 
For making them real ! The clear plans of what evils 

to fight, 
And how conquer them ; the dreams of true love and of 

life, 
How to keep them all sweet and all true ; the memories 

of hours 
When noble deeds, rhythmic verse, glorious colour 

or music that thrills 
Have roused me to my best as stirs the bugle call, the 

clean West Wind, 
The Sunset glow or stars at night. 

"EDEN AND AFTERWARDS" 

Who has not felt at times as though 
Enclosed within some radiant dome 
Whose deep foundations stretching to 
The full horizon's circling base 
Upbore it to the topmost sky 
To hold but you and Fate most high. 

Thus, thus do come to everyone 

His Eden and his Afterwards; 

So Right shall speak and bid you shun 

The Wrong; and Sin shall woo, and Truth! 

And each shall face and know himself 

And choose for Righteousness or Self. 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 295 

At the beginning of our voyage we passed many- 
steam or sail fishing craft and later a steamship 
or two; for instance, the Chicago of the French 
line, which boat was said to carry only second- 
class passengers and freight. I recalled Abraham 
Lincoln's humorous autobiography in which he de- 
scribed himself as descended from ' ' a second-class 
family." One day a school of some thirty "dol- 
phins" played about our prow for several hours; 
sometimes we had light misty fogs and rather low 
temperature ; but usually we were soothed by sun- 
shine and pleasant breezes. We had a succession of 
beautiful sunsets ; especially that of September 20th. 

Says my commonplace book: 

The sunset was against two parallel lines of thick 
grey cloud, from the lower edge of which the clouds 
hung in fringes. The sun, breaking through, painted 
the clouds, first yellow, then orange, then pink; and 
soon a burning blue edged the pink cloud mountains. 
Between the bands of grey the sky was yellow, and 
below straw-salmon. As the horizon changed to 
grey the waters beneath the lowermost cloud became 
a rippling sea of pale blue-white, even lighter and 
airier than the fishing-nets of the fishing fleets at 
Concarneau. A glory never to be forgotten. 

Thus we ploughed our way along dehghtfuUy, 



296 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

despite the bugaboo of the Equinox; even to 
New York we were destined to have fair weather, 
and no suffering from seasickness. That was an 
especial delight to me, for I had feared for us all 
after a long summer of unusual dietary and oc- 
cupations. Moreover, my own comfortable health 
enabled me to do a good deal of reading and writing 
concerning my summer's travelling. For example, 
I worked out the following historical sketch of 
London, the second largest city in the world. 

Settled by Celts before the dawn of history it 
has grown steadily until now "greater London," 
that is the area policed by the metropolitan and 
city police, extends over twelve to fifteen miles in 
every direction from Charing Cross, covers seven 
hundred square miles, and contains nearly six and 
three quarter million inhabitants. London means 
a strong, high-set place, contiguous to a pool. 
The pool used to extend to Ludgate Hill and 
Cornhill near St. Paul's and the Mansion House, 
respectively, and increased the water transporta- 
tion facilities which made London a great and 
rich trading city. Naturally it was often besieged 
and damaged. But the city continued to grow 
and to rise in importance. The Roman London 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 297 

that followed Celtic London stood eighteen feet 
below the level of the present town about Cheap- 
side and the Mansion House. Saxon London 
had walls which Alfred the Great constructed 
effectively against the Danes. The Normans 
built much in it, notably the first portion of the 
Tower of London — the White Tower. From 
the seventh century churches have stood upon 
the sites of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's. 

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
London suffered from extensive fires and in 138 1 
occurred the Wat Tyler insurrection against 
heavy taxes until Lord Mayor Walworth cut him 
down with a sword at Smithfield. Again in 
1450, another rebellion, also disastrous to much 
property, took place, led by Jack Cade. Henry 
Vin. (1509-47) and his daughter "Bloody" 
Mary (1552-58) burned many "heretics" at the 
stake at Smithfield — about where London's great 
meat market now stands; and Elizabeth (1558- 
1603) was greatly helped by London ships, money, 
and men in defeating the great sea and land 
force embarked by Philip H. of Spain, widower 
of "Bloody" Mary, to conquer and Catholicize 
all England. 



298 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

From the time of the Plantagenet Kings (1154), 
London has steadily developed her trading facili- 
ties. Revolting from ' ' Star Chamber' ' oppressions 
under Charles I. she became largely "Round 
Head." In 1664-66, the "Black Plague" killed 
100,000 of her citizens, and in the latter year the 
"great fire" burned 1300 houses, leaving few- 
great buildings except Westminster Abbey and 
Hall, the Temple Church, the Tower, and a few 
churches. The great architect Sir Christopher 
Wren was not allowed to rebuild the city as he 
counselled, but St. Paul's and some fifty other 
churches of varying and beautiful architecture 
were built by him in the old central square mile 
of the present "Greater London." 

"Greater London" comprises various areas — 
the area subject to the Central Criminal Court; 
the Metropolitan Water area, the London Postal 
district ; and many country villages touched by the 
extreme tentacles of the huge city are steadily 
being absorbed by it. The "Administrative 
County of London," including the city, has 
an area of 118 square miles, and about 4,500,000 
inhabitants, of whom not 30,000 live in the old 
"city" proper. In the "city" and the "East 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 299 

End" (east of the Temple), frequented by the 
tourist, are the commercial and financial quarters 
including the port, docks, Custom House, Bank, 
Exchange, business offices, post-office, "Times 
Newspaper plant, " Inns of Court, and St. Paul's 
Cathedral. Some of the districts within these 
sections are associated with certain trades or 
characteristics as follows: Pater Noster Row, 
book trade ; Smithfield, markets ; northern Clerken- 
well, watch-makers and metal workers; White 
Chapel, Jewish tailoring shops; Houndsditch and 
the Minories, the Jewish quarter; Bethnal Green 
and northern Spitalfields and Shoreditch, manu- 
facturing of furniture and boots, which have 
replaced the silk-weaving conducted by the 
French Protestants (Huguenots) who fled from the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

On the left, that is the north bank of the Thames, 
are the districts of Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse, 
Poplar, and Millwall, containing chiefly quays, 
wharves, storehouses, and engine factories, and 
inhabited by shipwrights, lightermen, sailors, 
and marine store dealers. The west of the 
"city" is bounded by Chancery Lane and the 
Inns of Court frequented by barristers, solicitors, 



300 MOTORING IN EUROPE 



and law stationers. "The West End" — that 
London extending west from the Temple — is the 
section of the spenders, law-makers, and fashion- 
ables with all their accessories, such as palaces, 
handsome private dwellings, clubs, museums, 
picture-galleries, theatres, barracks, Government 
offices, House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, 
parks, squares, and gardens. Its chief residential 
quarters lie as follows: Mayfair, between Bond 
Street and Park Lane; Belgravia around Bel- 
grave Square, the southern portion of the "West 
End," lies between Hyde Park, Green Park, 
Sloane Street, and Pimlico; Tyburnia bounds 
Hyde Park to the north. And to the west of 
Tyburnia is Bayswater. Pimlico really includes 
Belgravia and extends between Westminster and 
Chelsea, the Thames and Knights Bridge which is 
the extension for a long distance of Piccadilly 
beyond its intersection with Sloane Street. To 
the west of Pimlico is Brompton, in which are the 
Roman Catholic Oratory and the Kensington 
Museum. Bloomsbury lies between Tottenham 
Court Road and Gray's Inn Road. 

On the right bank of the Thames, just across 
from "the City," is Southwark called "The 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 301 

Borough," that ancient Borough where Shake- 
speare lived, played, and wrote; and where the 
Globe Theatre was situated; while Lambeth and 
Battersea continue it to the west. In those three 
areas great business in pottery, glasswares, 
machinery, brewing, and hops is carried on. On 
the river below South wark are Bermondsey 
with its great tanneries, glue factories, and wool 
warehouses; Rotherhithe, inhabited by sailors, 
ship-carpenters, coal-heavers, and bargemen ; Dept- 
ford, with its great cattle-market; Greenwich, 
with its naval observatory and Tudor Palace; 
and Woolwich, with its military school. "The 
City, " that is. Old London, the central square 
mile of the present gigantic city, consisting of 
26 wards, and Southwark — 27, and 112 parishes, 
has its own administration and jurisdiction and 
Lord Mayor. "The City" County Council of 
London consists of these twenty-eight metro- 
politan boroughs, each of which has an elective 
council and a mayor who care for all the civic 
needs of the borough: — Westminster, Battersea, 
Bermondsey, Bethnal Green, Camberwell, Chel- 
sea, Deptford, Finsbury, Fulham, Greenwich, 
Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Holborn, 



302 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

Islington, Kensington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Pad- 
dington, Poplar, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, 
Shoreditch, South wark. Stepney, Stoke Newing- 
ton, Wandsworth, and Woolwich. 

"The Administrative County of London" in- 
cludes "the City" and parts of the counties of 
Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent. There are one 
hundred and eighteen Councillors, two elected 
by the borough franchise, every three years, 
for each parliamentary division, and nineteen 
Aldermen appointed by the Council. 

Modern London has every up-to-date facility, 
sewerage, bridges, tunnels, avenues, good housing, 
education, etc. London has in Parliament two 
representatives for "the City" and fifty-seven 
for the rest of the metropolis. For comfortable 
transportation about London there are the 'buses, 
street cars in certain districts, the splendid under- 
ground system, the boats on the Thames, taxi- 
cabs, and the seldom seen hansoms. Great and 
marvellous in every way is this splendid London 
which throughout English history has been the 
virtual epitome of each period. These periods 
are: Roman, B.C. 55-449, or 394 years, the 
period of subjugation; Anglo-Saxon, 449-1066, 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 303 



or 617 years, the period of divided counsels and 
many kingdoms; 1 066-1 154, or 88 years, the 
period of national unifying; Plantagenet, 1154- 
1399, or 245 years, the period of increasing self- 
government for the people; Lancaster, 1 399-1 461, 
or 62 years, the period of factional struggle in 
which feudal power weakened and in which the 
common people were very miserable; House of 
York, 1461-1483, or 22 years, the continuation of 
the processes described above ; Tudor, 1485- 1603, or 
118 years, during which feudalism and the common 
people alike, broken by the preceding 84 years of 
civil wars, "The Wars of the Roses," could not 
prevent a great increase of power in the hands 
of the Crown; Stuart, 1603-17 14, a period of in 
years of increasingly successful struggle by the 
great body of the nation against the arbitrary 
power of the Crown; Hanoverian, 1714 to date, 
now 200 years, during which the growth of the 
people's power has almost continually advanced 
until at this writing the question is simply down 
what channels that power can be most helpfully 
directed. 

Perhaps I may seem to dwell too much on these 
details, many of which can be found, of course, in 



304 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

various books; but I have tried to clear my own 
mind in these matters, and I imagine that such a 
massing of them as is accomplished in this account 
of my tour in that happy summer of 1910, will 
be of ready help to others who may travel over 
the same ground. At any rate, I am rounding 
out the story of those travels and of the pleasant 
thoughts into which they led me. 

After a voyage of nine days on that steady old 
Vaderland, we steamed into New York Harbour 
to our own country and our own Flag. The 
Custom House gave us no trouble, for we each 
declared everything separately, but the duties 
imposed ran to a large figure. Through with 
that transaction we took train for Baltimore, 
where at 6 p.m we were met with a welcoming 
note and half an hour later were with our "home 
folk" again. Recalling all that we had done, 
the risks of travel, and the pleasure and information 
we had experienced, our hearts were full of gratitude. 
As for me, I can earnestly state that the zest of those 
eleven weeks of delightful travel, with charming 
companions, through beautiful, varied, and historic 
scenes will remain with me always, and that 
forever I am beholden to them one and all. 



PARIS, LONDON, AND HOME 305 

Faithful "Tom," the chauffeur, had already- 
reached Baltimore safely with the "Packard 6" 
in good order. It had carried us all safely along 
many pleasant roads. Were I to travel through 
the same general region again I would add to 
my itinerary a visit to the Grand Duchy of Lux- 
embourg, south-east of Belgium, for it has great 
natural beauty and possesses many wonderful 
ruins and ancient buildings of great interest ; to the 
C6tentin, the peninsula of Normandy, for it is 
supremely rich in characteristic Norman remains 
as well as in beauty; to the Valley of the Seine 
in Normandy, for the interesting Norman castles 
and religious buildings; to the remote western 
and south-western seacoast, and the mountain 
nooks of Brittany, for in them lurk the most 
unadulterated examples of the life and people of 
the Brittany of old. 

I must call a halt or the spell of the joy- 
ous days that summer afforded me will set 
my pen to scribbling too many of my casual 
thoughts. May all earnest travellers in those 
lovely lands reap from their experiences as 
full a crop of happiness as was granted unto 
me. 



3o6 MOTORING IN EUROPE 

HOME AGAIN 

Where the heart is there is Home; I hear that old 

familiar cry ; 
But oh, the Heart, the Heart, it has so many, many 

homes 
And some of them are very sad. There, where you 

used to love so trustingly, 
Distrust has come and rests, and broods despite your 

hungry love ; 
Here where your love still wakes its old and rapturous 

fellows 
It notes declining powers and waning interest in life; 
And everywhere is restlessness that constant mars the 

things 
You deemed so safe from change when you did say 

your firm "good-bye." 
But Love lingers ! Bring that but with you and you 

mock at change. 
More perfect glow the phases of the tale your loved 

ones tell 
Of all their happenings since you did go away; and 

all your deeds 
In absence, so outtold in your turn glow and glimmer 

too. 
The very centre of your very life is wrapped about with 

all 
The loving memories of the stored up treasures of 

your Home. 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



307 



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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



309 



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to \r> 




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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



;ii 



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w 








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312 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



< a 


Lunch at Hotel Royal, 
Dinner at Hdtel d' 
Angleterre. 


Lunch at Hotel de 
I'Europe. Ordinary. 
Dinner at Hdtel d' 
Angleterre. 


Lunch at H6tel de 
France. Very poor. 
Dinner at H6tel de 
Bretagne. Fair. 








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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



313 




314 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 





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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



315 



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3i6 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



Q 
t/) < 




Lunch at H6tel de 1' 

Univers. 

Dinner at H6tel Ter- 
minus. Good. 




Lunch at H6tel France 
et d'Angleterre. Good. 
Dinner at H6tel St. 
Laurent et Commerce. 


-In 


o 

'A 






'i- 




10 

q 
10 







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^ :: 
10 

CD to 

w k6 


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l-l 


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03,'- 



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1 11 



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to »o 

ro 10 q 




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< 

a 


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00 
00 





MOTORING IN EUROPE 



317 



Lunch at H6tel du 
Commerce. Blow-out 
No. 3 near Les Roises. 
Caused delay of i 
hour. Dinner at 
H6tel de 1' ,Univers et 
du Commerce. Good. 




Lunch at H6tel de 1' 
Univers et du Com- 
merce. Good. Din- 
ner at H6tel d'Angle- 
terre. Excellent in- 
deed. Hotel Baren. 
Clean. 








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06 




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06 




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10 
q CO fO ro 
i-I w 10 06 






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ON 
1— I 











Brienne 

Wassy 

Domremy 

Nancy 


Strassburg 
Baden-Baden 




Troyes 
Brienne 
Wassy 
Domremy 


Nancy 
Strassburg 




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q q CO q 
6 w rJ vo 


S :: 
i-i 

w On 




ON 

00 ' " " 






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3i8 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 



< 111 


Lunch at H6tel Royal. 
Excellent. Dinner at 
Bayerischer Hof. 
Clean. Poor Food. 




Lunch at Bayerischer 
Hof. Good. Dinner 
at Agence Lubin.' Or- 
dinary. 




Breakfast at 84 'Dibler 
St. IHouse of Benedict 
Glochel, "James the 
Less." Lunch at 
Agence Lubin. 






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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



319 



1 I ^J I • 




(U +J (D 




0) ,/ -t-^ c! ' '-' 






Sebarischo 

Dinner a 

vue. Neu 

od enough 




:slg dais's 
^ s s^:h T s 8 

J fo > ffi pq T3 fe 




S « 3 




ch at 
Hof. 
el Belle 
sen. Gc 


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fen 
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hau 















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01 


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1-1 GO ON 


00 








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t-t Hi 


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Sebarisc 
fen 
Meuhau 


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00 




00 




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320 



MOTORING IN EUROPE 







M-r) Q 








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1 


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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



321 



o 






PL, 



O 

rH > 

71 '-' • 



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a, 






2- 



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r-j U .S ^ 



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MOTORING IN EUROPE 



in < 






O 




d 


ARRIVED 
AT 


O 
-t 




KILO- 
METRES 


t^ 


f^ 


O 
H 


Belgian 
Custom 
House 


O 


> 


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o 

o 


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-5 >. -^ ^ i^' 

5 £? 0) S ;3 



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o a^ o r^ ^ o t; 



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d '^r;3 



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S > Jri oj r;^ t^ o '-3 'E o D,/^ g ^ 



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^ DOBBS BROS. i^ .. ^^v c'^ 

fl IIBIMRV BINDING 5^^ ^ ^ ^ 

FEB '' Hi\>^* 4^ '^«. 

ST. AUGUSTINE '^ A^ "^-^ "' 

^% FLA. >^ ^ ' " ' * "^ 



Lk^>,^ 



32084 



^^-' -^^ 






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